Holiday Hors D’oeuvres: Homemade Boursin Cheese Wreath

Entertaining this holiday season? Put away your charcuterie boards for a bit, and take a dive into the wonderful world of holiday dips and spreads. Homemade Boursin Cheese, made primarily of cream cheese and butter, is a great place to start. And, here’s the delicious bonus, if you love shopping local like I do, you’ll delight in the fact that this recipe is made with all locally produced North Carolina products.

Don’t live in North Carolina? No worries, many of the ingredients called for in this recipe can be ordered online. Here Your shopping list follows with links on where to buy.

• 1Eatz egg seasoning packets – produced in Raleigh NC
• iLewa Foods Suya Spice from Dounou Cuisine – Produced in Raleigh NC
• Sea Love Sea Salt – Produced in Wrightsville Beach, NC
• Heidi’s Hot Pepper Blend ( see recipe and links below)
• Cream Cheese – If you are in the Charlotte area, you can buy locally-made cream cheese from my good friend Zack Gadberry at Uno Alla Volta every Saturday morning at the Matthews Farmers’ Market
• Real Dairy Butter – Zack also sells locally-produced butter at the Matthews Farmers Market.
• NC Pecans and lots of other nuts from Joy Filled Foods out of Goldsboro, NC

If you are not in the Charlotte area or can’t get to the Matthews Farmers Market, you can still make this recipe with commercial cream cheese and butter. I would just encourage you to start with the real thing. This one time, do not use lower in fat cream cheeses or substitute the real dairy butter for margarine or any other butter substitute – the end result just won’t be the same.

How to Spice Up Your Homemade Boursin Cheese

Start with a couple of tablespoons of iLéWa Foods Suya Spice. This spice blend packaged in Raleigh NC, starts in the West African country of Benin.

Chef Adé Carrena of Dounou Cuisine in Raleigh, imports the spices from her homeland and then blends them into this wonderful mix. Once you try it, you’ll find all sorts of ways to add it to everything from breaders for frying to all of your winter one-pot meals. Order online and read more here. In this recipes I’ve combined it with a couple of tablespoons of Herbs de Province to bring in the herbs.

Want to read more about Sea Love Sea Salt ? I’ve told you about them before. Delicious handmade sea salt, sourced right from the ocean waters off the Coast of NC. Read more about them and order online using the links you’ll find in the Eat Local post I tagged at the top of this paragraph.

Seasoning Your Homemade Boursin Cheese made easy with a coffee grinder

If you’ve not ever eaten Boursin Cheese, it’s a fresh, soft cheese originally made in Normany France. The flavors of the commercially produced product vary from garlic and herbs to black pepper and truffle. Boursin cheese is easy to find in most grocery store refrigerated cheese cases. But sometimes, its just more fun to make your own.

Remember though, if you are going the homemade route, the key is to spice it up. To that end, in my recipe I’ve featured a blend of peppercorns and coriander seeds, fondly called, Heidi’s Hot Pepper Blend. I start with whole spices I buy from the Savory Spice Shop in Charlotte, my go-to shop for whole dried spices. Find the recipe below. If you’ve ever taken a cooking class from me, you’ve seen me make this in small batches in my home coffee grinder.

If you want to grind coffee the morning after you cook, no worries. Its simple to clean the herbs or spices out of your grinder. Just take a tablespoon of coffee beans, put them in the grinder and grind to a fine powder. Then dump that powdered coffee into your compost. This first grind of coffee beans acts like charcoal or a filter and will remove any trace of herb or spice flavor from your grinder.

Shop with Me…

If you don’t have a coffee grinder at home, its a wonderful piece of kitchen equipment, perfect for grinding all kinds of dried herbs and spice blends. We’ll actually use a coffee grinder twice in this recipe.

If you are looking to buy, you’ll find a couple of great reasonably priced choices here, in the cooking tools and gadget section of my Amazon storefront. I thought it would be nice to set up a storefront of my own on Amazon, as a go-to for lots of cool things I use in the kitchen. I even started a Shop North Carolina section! And there is a section that includes some of my favorite cookbooks. Do check it out – I’m constantly updating

How to Grind Up Heidi’s Hot Pepper Blend
I use equal amounts of tellicherry, pink reunion and lampong peppercorns. Add coriander seeds for a slightly citrusy edge. The grind them all up in a coffee grinder. Note – this recipe won’t work in a hand held pepper grinder as the pink reunion peppercorns are too soft. Stick with the coffee grinder for best results. When you are done, just grind up a tablespoon or so of fresh coffee beans. Once the coffee is ground, toss it in the compost bin. Your coffee grinder will be free of any peppery residue and your ready for coffee tomorrow morning.

Heidi Billotto

Making Homemade Boursin Cheese

Once you have the ingredients, the how to is as easy as blending everything together in a food processor or stand mixer. Add the seasonings as directed and then adjust to taste.

I love the addition of the 1Eatz egg seasoning kits here. They are great to have on hand for all sorts of uses. Grinding the packets up in the coffee grinder make them an easy-to-blend addition to this particular recipe. The mix of vegetables adds a nice layer of flavor and the butter and milk solids in each packet make for an even creamier result.

The minute I saw these I thought, “Brilliant!” This Raleigh-based, woman-owned company has the answer for busy moms, people on the go and singles who don’t want to cook more than they can eat. 1Eatz single serving seasoning packs come in five different delicious flavors. Order Online, select the one or two of your choice – or order the five flavor sampler pack – and let your tastebuds enjoy. You’ll also now find 1 Eatz in many area Food Lion stores.

Made with freeze-dried ( not dehydrated) veggies, spices and butter, too. When you are not making this homemade boursin cheese recipe, use these packets to season egg dishes. Simply add the pack of your choice to two beaten eggs, let the mix stand for 3-4 minutes and then scramble the beaten eggs or use them for an omelette or frittata. You’ll find lots of delicious recipes and the shop for online ordering on the 1EatZ website here. 

On to the Boursin Cheese Recipe

Once you get the cheese and butter mixture blended and seasoned to taste. Scoop it out of the processor and onto a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Shape the cheesy mix into a wreath or a cone. Use a nice serving plate as a base. Refrigerate for a bit if the mix is too soft to shape.

Today I decided to go with the wreath and used one of my favorite crystal serving platters.

Then, stud the cheese with toasted pecans. The butter roasted pecans from Joy Filled Foods, work beautifully here; or green olives, dried cranberries or any othre nuts and seeds. o

Garnish with sprigs of fresh rosemary for even more holiday flair. The result will be a Homemade Boursin Cheese Tree or Wreath you can serve with your favorite crackers. We love the large crisp artisan flatbread crackers from The Accidental Baker in Hillsborough, NC. You can order these online or find them in Whole Foods and other area grocery stores.