Triple cream cheese
A very rich soft cheese with at least seventy-five per cent fat in dry matter, such as Brillat-Savarin.
Also: triple-crème, triple crème
A triple-cream cheese is made from milk enriched with plenty of extra cream, so that fat makes up at least seventy-five per cent of its dry matter, the French legal threshold for triple-crème. The best known is Brillat-Savarin, named after the eighteenth-century French gourmet, along with Explorateur, Pierre-Robert and Saint-André. Most have a thin bloomy rind and a paste that is dense, buttery and almost like whipped butter when young, turning softer and more savoury as it ripens. Their flavour is mild, lactic and slightly tangy. They pair well with Champagne and other sparkling wines, whose acidity cuts their richness. Below seventy-five per cent the cheese is double-cream.