Baked Mont d’Or cheese

Mont d’Or cheese is special. Only in season from 10 September to 10 May, ripened in spruce wood cases and stickily delicious! And this recipe for baked Mont d’Or cheese with wine is quite simply – sublime.

Editors tip: If you can’t get vin jaune, use dry white wine instead.

SERVES 8
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 35 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 baguette
⅓ cup (80 ml) olive oil
10 garlic cloves, peeled, shoots removed
1 Mont d’Or cheese
2 ½ cups (600 ml) vin jaune (this wine is sold exclusively in 620 ml bottles)
Freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 300°F–325°F (150°C–160°C).

Prepare some croutons: cut the bread, drizzle with olive oil, and grill in the oven until light brown.

Rub the croutons with the garlic and set aside.

Cut a hole into the center of the Mont d’Or, reserving the top, and pour in the amount of vin jaune you desire, no less than a scant ½ cup (100 ml). Press the pieces of garlic into the cheese.

Cover the central hole with the reserved piece of cheese. Place the cheese in its box, wrap the box in aluminum foil, and bake for about 35 minutes.

Remove as soon as it is melted to your liking. Give a few grinds of the pepper mill and serve immediately, to eat with spoons and croutons.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Mont d’Or cheese is a specialty of the Jura region in eastern France, and takes its name from the highest mountain there. It is sold in a box made of spruce. Highly prized vin jaune, or yellow wine, is produced in the same region from the Savagnin grape, and is aged for a requisite time of six years and three months, during which time it acquires its characteristic yellow colour.

Extracted from The Complete Book of French Cooking by Hubert Delorme and Vincent Boué (Flammarion, 2023).