The Good: Wonderful flavor, Easy to work with, Good ingredients
The Bad: Nothing that I can find!
The Basics: Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger cheddar cheese is a perfect cheese for anyone who loves being able to taste the cheese and meat flavors a cheese embodies!
I love Yancey's Fancy cheese. I love Yancey's Fancy cheese so much that on my last trip through New York, I bought a bunch of flavors of the cheese that have not yet made it out to the midwest where I live now. One of the flavors I picked up that I was most eager to try was the Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger. And it was worth the wait!
The bacon in the Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar pops and the cheese tastes like a much sharper cheddar than I would have guessed given how soft it is. But given my love of well-aged cheddar cheese, this was not at all a detraction for me!
Basics
Yancey's Fancy is a manufacturer of Artisan Cheeses in upstate New York and they make some very creative cheeses. 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 gouda with bacon. Yancey's Fancy cheeses come in wheels (usually ten or twenty pounds each) and most stores chop the wheels into blocks. Online, it is fairly easy to find the cheese in one pound blocks, though this new flavor seems to have limited availability and quantity.
The Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese is exactly as its name implies. This is a weirdly colored sickly brown-yellow cheese with giant bacon bits in it. Mixed throughout the cheddar block are the actual chunks of red, cooked bacon which carry their flavor into every bite of the cheese. Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese comes encased in a soft dark green wax which allows the cheese to maintain its shape and solid state. The dark green wax helps consumers distinguish it from other flavors of Yancey's Fancy cheese.
Ease Of Preparation
Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger 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, starting with removing 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 Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger 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!
More than most cheeses with other things embedded in them, Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese is very easy to work with. I just picked up a new cheese plane and maybe it is because of that, but this cheese sliced exceptionally easily! This cheese is not so hard to fracture or otherwise fall apart. It is very easy to work with on its own or as an ingredient.
When the cheese is sliced, it melts beautifully with wonderful evenness and liquidity, making it an ideal ingredient to make flavorful omelets or to replace cheddar cheese in dishes like macaroni and cheese. It is delicious when melted into sandwiches, eggs or even a cream sauce (to make a cheese sauce). The first time I tried this cheese was in a grilled cheese on fresh rye bread and it is not an understatement to classify that dish as "orgasmic."
Taste
On its own, the Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese smells like a delightful blend of bacon and cheddar. The aromas from this cheese are distinct and inviting, living up on the scent front to the promises of two of the three promised flavors.
In the mouth, Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese has all the tang of a cheddar cheese sharper than this one and the salty, meaty flavor of bacon. The flavors are delightful and full, making for an instantly flavorful cheese that tastes like what one would expect from eating a bacon cheese burger! The cheesy, meaty flavors make for a well-rounded intriguing taste when enjoyed on its own or as an ingredient.
Melted, the cheese and bacon flavors blend even better, making for a cheese that becomes the focal point of the flavor palate, not a supporting player! The Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger is not an accent cheese, it is the cheese one uses when they want to taste a rich, meaty, cheesy flavor at the forefront of their taste experience. That makes the Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger ideal for quesadillas, omelettes, and more complicated dishes like macaroni and cheese!
The Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar leaves a nicely salty, slightly tangy aftertaste in the mouth after the last of this cheese is consumed and the aftertaste is not at all unpleasant.
Nutrition
Yancey's Fancy New York Artisan Cheeses are not intended to be all that one lives on. But for those who try, the Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese is not a terribly healthy choice. The bacon does not seem to add anything of note to the cheese of nutritional value. 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 15% of the RDA of calcium and has six grams of protein.
The Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger 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, annato and bacon bits. That makes it mostly natural, but it does have the preservative trisodium citrate, which robs it of being considered all natural. This Yancey's Fancy cheese is not marked as gluten free and, obviously, it is not suitable for Vegans!
Storage/Cleanup
As a cheese, Yancey's Fancy Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger 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 as our 7.6 oz block was gone within three days of being opened! So long as it is kept in an airtight, cold environment, it ought to remain fresh and supple. Our package bought a month and a half ago had an expiration date of November 1, 2018.
Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar 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 Grilled Bacon Cheeseburger Cheddar cheese is flat-out perfect and it is a cheese I know I will stock up on . . . just as soon as I can get back to where it is sold!
For other Yancey's Fancy cheese reviews, please check out my takes on:
Bacon Ranch Cheddar
Steakhouse Onion Cheddar
Peppadew Cheddar
10/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page!
© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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