When is a Wedding Cake Not a Cake? When It’s a Cheese Ball!
This petite wedding cake shaped cheese spread is perfect for wedding and engagement showers and features a fresh lemon flavored cream cheese. Serving with both graham crackers and berries is a nice option, or you could even try chocolate wafer cookies! This “cheese ball” is from Michelle Buffardi’s book Great Balls of Cheese, which is an inspired compilation of both sweet and savory cheese spread ideas – more creative than you could have ever imagined. Try her New York Style Cheesecake, too.
Excerpted from Great Balls of Cheese
A few years ago, bath towels rolled to look like wedding cakes were all the rage at bridal showers. Everyone’s seen those about a million times, so wow your cousins and make your girlfriends jealous with a wedding cake cheese ball instead.
Special equipment: ramekins in 3 sizes: 1 ounce, 3 ounce, and 6 ounce
- 14 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1⁄2 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Graham crackers and strawberries, for serving
- Line the 3 ramekins with plastic wrap, leaving an overhang.
- Using a stand mixer or a bowl and a spatula, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract.
- Pack the mixture into the prepared ramekins, leveling the top with a butter knife. Put the remaining cream cheese mixture in a plastic zip-top bag; refrigerate the ramekins and bag for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- Before serving, overturn the largest ramekin onto a platter; remove the ramekin and the plastic wrap. The cheese will have wrinkles in it from the plastic wrap—to smooth the wrinkles, run a butter knife under hot water for 30 seconds and dry it with a towel. Use the warm knife to smooth out each layer of the cheese, repeating the water step when the knife cools. Gently overturn the 3-ounce ramekin onto the 6-ounce ramekin and the 1-ounce ramekin on top of that. To decorate the cake, snip the tip off a corner of the zip-top bag. Gently squeeze out beads of the cheese mixture along the bottom and top of each cake layer. (Or use a cake decorating bag and tips to decorate the cake.)
- Serve with graham crackers and strawberries.
A great take on the mini wedding cake trend. Like this idea for wedding showers.