Sweet and caramel

Caramel and brown butter: aged Gouda, brunost, Parmigiano crystals and Mimolette.

Some cheeses taste distinctly sweet, of caramel, butterscotch, brown butter or toffee. In a few the sweetness is real sugar, as in brunost, made by boiling whey until its milk sugar caramelises. In most it comes from long ageing, as in old Gouda, Mimolette and Parmigiano Reggiano, where breakdown products and crystals give a sweet, savoury depth. And the fresh cheese in Indian sweets carries the sugar of its syrup.

Caramel from whey

Brunost and the other Scandinavian whey cheeses, such as mysost and the spreadable prim, are cooked for hours until the lactose in the whey browns, as milk sugar and proteins react in the heat. The result tastes of fudge and dulce de leche, with a sour, goaty edge in geitost. India's khoa, milk reduced slowly in an open pan until it is a thick paste, is a close relative in method, though it is not a cheese, and it is the base of many sweets alongside chhena.

Old Gouda and Mimolette

Gouda aged for two years or more turns hard and deep amber, with crunchy crystals and a flavour of butterscotch and toasted nuts. Dutch cheesemakers sell it as oude, old, and overjarig, over a year. Mimolette, the orange ball cheese of the Lille area, coloured with annatto, is aged with cheese mites that leave its rind rough and cratered, and old Mimolette tastes of hazelnut and caramel. Long-aged Parmigiano Reggiano and Comté have a similar sweetness behind their savoury depth.

Sweet with fresh cheese

Many of the world's sweets are made from fresh cheese. Chhena is shaped and cooked in syrup for rasgulla, baked with sugar and semolina for chhena poda, and cooked with sugar for sandesh. Ricotta fills Sicilian cannoli and cassata, quark and tvorog make German and Russian cheesecakes, and akkawi lies beneath syrup and pastry in kunafa. In these the cheese gives body and a gentle tang that keeps the sugar in balance.

Worth knowing

Brunost: Norwegian caramelised whey cheese
Gouda: Butterscotch-sweet when very old
Mimolette: Orange ball cheese aged with mites
Parmigiano Reggiano: Sweet and savoury when long-aged
Rasgulla: Chhena balls in light syrup
Sandesh: Bengali sweet of chhena and sugar
Chhena poda: Baked cheese sweet of Odisha
Knafeh: Levantine cheese pastry in syrup

Sources and further reading

About this page

Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.