Black Baron: Fen Farm Dairy’s Take on Brie Noir

Most of us know Brie as a soft, pale cheese, eaten while the paste is yielding and creamy beneath its white rind. Brie Noir is what happens when you take that familiar idea and keep going. This unusual speciality from the Brie region of France is made by ageing Brie for far longer than usual. Over many months the cheese loses moisture, its colour deepens from pale yellow towards brown, and the soft paste becomes firm and concentrated. The result bears surprisingly little resemblance to the young cheese it began as.

It is this traditional French cheese that inspired the team at Fen Farm Dairy to create Black Baron, a very different expression of their much-loved Baron Bigod.

What is Brie Noir?

Brie Noir, or Black Brie, is a traditional cheese of the Île-de-France, particularly associated with the historic Brie-producing area east of Paris. Where a conventional Brie might spend a matter of weeks maturing, Brie Noir is kept for many months. During this time the cheese steadily dries, darkens and firms, concentrating the flavours within it.

Historically, this was also a practical way of dealing with Brie that might otherwise have gone to waste. Surplus cheeses, or those that were not quite handsome enough to sell as fresh Brie, could continue to mature instead. With much of their moisture gone, the finished cheeses were hardier and easier to store and transport. Brie Noir became particularly associated with agricultural workers in the region, who could carry it out into the fields without the care demanded by a ripe, soft Brie. What began as necessity developed into a cheese with a character entirely of its own.

A long way from a soft Brie

Ageing does extraordinary things to Brie. As moisture disappears, the cheese becomes darker and denser, while the familiar buttery, mushroomy character becomes much more concentrated. Traditional Brie Noir can show flavours ranging from toasted nuts and dried fruit to earthiness, acidity and caramel.

It can be powerful stuff, traditionally eaten in smaller quantities rather than generous wedges. There is also one particularly wonderful local custom associated with it: dipping Brie Noir into black coffee. It sounds unusual, but the bitterness of the coffee makes a surprisingly natural partner for a cheese with such concentrated, savoury flavour.

From Baron Bigod to Black Baron

Fen Farm Dairy has always looked to France for inspiration. Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore travelled through France while developing Baron Bigod, eventually bringing Montbéliarde cows from the Jura back to their farm near Bungay in Suffolk. Their aim was to make a Brie de Meaux-style cheese using milk from their own herd, and Baron Bigod is still made on the farm from that fresh milk.

Black Baron takes that French connection another step. Earlier this year, the cheesemakers at Fen Farm set aside a small selection of 1kg Baron Bigod wheels and allowed them to mature for several additional months. Rather than aiming for the soft, creamy texture for which Baron Bigod is best known, they deliberately took the cheese further, drawing inspiration from Brie Noir.

The transformation is striking. The pale bloomy rind darkens dramatically, the soft paste becomes much firmer and fudgier, and the flavours become deeper and more concentrated. Black Baron develops salty, savoury and caramelised notes, while the rind takes on a delicate crunch. It is still recognisably related to Baron Bigod, but it is certainly not Baron Bigod as you normally know it.

A cheese for the darker months

Fen Farm describes Black Baron as a cheese created to mark “the turning of the season, the slide of nature’s decay and the coming darkness.” There is something particularly fitting about it appearing in autumn, when richer and more concentrated flavours begin to feel right at home.

Its striking dark rind might make it particularly well suited to a Halloween cheeseboard, but the story is much more interesting than a seasonal gimmick. This is Fen Farm Dairy exploring an old French cheesemaking tradition through a cheese they already know intimately. Baron Bigod itself was born from an admiration for French Brie, and Black Baron takes that relationship full circle by borrowing from another, much rarer chapter of Brie’s history.

How to eat Black Baron

For the full Brie Noir experience, black coffee is the obvious place to start. The bitterness sits remarkably well alongside the salty, caramelised intensity of the cheese, while the warmth softens the texture slightly.

Black Baron is also excellent with a full-bodied red wine or a farmhouse cider, while ripe pear brings a little sweetness against its savoury intensity. Serve it in relatively small pieces and give it time. This is a cheese to nibble and linger over rather than eat by the slab.

Black Baron has been made in very limited quantities, so it will not be around for long. For anyone who already loves Baron Bigod, it offers the chance to see just how far one cheese can travel simply through the passage of time.