The Good: Melts well, Nothing truly bad in it, Flavorful
The Bad: Difficult to work with, A little more expensive than I would like, Overly hot!
The Basics: Ridiculously hot, Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing cheese is hard to recommend for anyone who doesn't want their mouth burned out.
I like flavor, but not having my tastebuds ripped out of my mouth and trampled upon by any food. That is why I might not be the best judge of Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing cheddar cheese. This cheddar is supposed to be so hot as to remind consumers of the bar food Buffalo wings. I am not a big fan of hot food, so I would not especially enjoy Buffalo wings, or I haven't when I have had them at parties and the like. Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing cheddar lives up to the wretchedly hot flavor of Buffalo wings.
I encountered Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese at the grocery store at $7.99/lb. Regardless of my personal issues with this cheese, that price is a value, even if that was a sale price.
Basics
Yancey's Fancy is a manufacturer of Artisan Cheeses here in upstate New York. The intent of most Yancey's Fancy cheeses is that they will be cheeses that hold their own as snacks that may be served to consumers in fancier settings. They specialize in cheddar cheeses that have different flavors infused into them: champagne, jalapeno, various nuts, etc., as well as more exotic cheeses like Bergenost. Yancey's Fancy cheeses come in wheels (usually ten or twenty pounds each) and most stores chop the wheels into blocks. On-line, it is fairly easy to find the cheese in one pound blocks.
The Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese is exactly as its name implies. This is a solid orange cheese with little red embedded pepper pieces. The pepper chunks are much like the red pepper flakes one finds at pizza shops and they are spread pretty uniformly throughout the blocks of cheddar.
Ease Of Preparation
Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese is a cheese, so more often than not, it is used on its own or as an ingredient in a recipe. Preparation of the cheese is pretty simple: if it has been purchased in a smaller quantity than the entire wheel, remove the plastic wrap it is sealed in. When that is done, simply peel back the wax coating on the outer edges. This happens with remarkable ease. The Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese seems to not adhere to the wax. This makes it a very easy cheese to separate from the wax coating and it may be placed on a cutting block or plate ready to be cut!
Unfortunately, Buffalo Wing cheddar cheese is difficult to work with. While the cheese melts fairly easily, it does not lend itself well being a uniform component in dishes. A cheese plane causes this cheddar to fracture more than slice and it breaks up quite a bit while being grated as well. Our block took a while to use in our kitchen, though I used it in sandwiches, omelets and atop hamburgers.
Taste
Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese has a peppery scent which is so strong that it opens the nostrils right up and gets the eyes watering. The scent is enough to cause a physical reaction that is unpleasant to those who are not fond of hot foods.
Placed on the tongue, Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing cheddar is a study in a lack of subtlety. The taste is that of hot peppers surrounded by a mild cheese flavor. The cheese acts more as a medium than anything else. That medium carries the gut-wrenchingly hot peppery flavor of the Buffalo Wing sauce in the cheese and it spreads to whatever this cheese is melted over.
Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing cheddar is so strong that it overwhelms the flavor of every food it is melted over. Potatoes, for example, do not mute the fire taste of this cheese, making it hard to enjoy with anything else.
Nutrition
Yancey's Fancy New York Artisan Cheeses are not intended to be all that one lives on. But for those who try, the Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese is not a terribly healthy or pleasant choice. A serving size is considered a one inch block (1 oz.). In that, there are 110 calories, 80 of which are from fat. This cheese has 25% of one's daily recommended saturated fat intake and 11% of the RDA of sodium. On the plus side, it does have 20% of the RDA of calcium and has six grams of protein.
Obviously, Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese is a dairy product, so those who are lactose intolerant will have problems with it. This cheese is made primarily of aged cheddar cheese, habanero peppers and jalapeno peppers. That makes it mostly natural, despite a trio of preservatives.
Storage/Cleanup
As a cheese, Yancey's Fancy Buffalo Wing Cheddar cheese should be kept refrigerated. So long as that happens, it ought to stay fresh for several weeks. I am utterly unable to write about shelf-life, though this was a Yancey's Fancy cheese that lasted longer than most for us. It took me two weeks to get through the one-pound block we purchased. So long as it is kept in an airtight, cold environment, it ought to remain fresh and supple.
Buffalo Wing is a cheese, so it is not going to stain or ruin anything unless it is ground into a fabric. Baring that, cleanup of nonporous surfaces is as easy as wiping them with a damp cloth.
Overall
Yancey's Fancy's Buffalo Wing cheddar cheese lives up to its name as a hot pepper-accented cheese that is so strong as to be unpleasant to those who are not fond of overly spicy foods.
For other Yancey's Fancy cheese reviews, please check out my takes on:
Smoked Gouda
New York Sharp Cheddar
Horseradish Cheddar
5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page on the subject! That is available by clicking here!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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