For years I wanted to try a candle-shaped recipe, ever since the days of Visual Food, a site I followed years ago that no longer exists, but maybe some of you still remember it like I do. I clearly remember how their polenta candles amazed me at the time, they were truly innovative (at least for me!). I had promised myself to replicate them, one Christmas or another, but as often happens, I never had the right push to try, abandoning the idea. Until a month ago, by chance, I saw a recipe that sparked my interest again, 😀 a recipe that has nothing to do with polenta, but is suitable for me and my chronic lack of time, because it’s a no-cook recipe: the cheese candles!

A clever idea to use as a Christmas appetizer or as a place card.

It all started, indeed, about a month ago while I was bored, looking at my Instagram home. And in the midst of boredom, a flash. Some cheese candles appeared in front of me, and they immediately seemed like a genius idea. And, from the outset, necessarily to be modified. 😃 Oh yes, come on, what’s the fun in copying exactly? The beauty of cooking is personalizing!

At first, I wasn’t completely convinced by the flames made with pickled onions, because as soon as I saw them, my first thought returned to Visual food, and its flames made with carrots. In short, the idea of a colored flame instead of a white one appealed to me more. Even though, in fact, when I photographed my candles, I realized that white flames (pickled onions or white turnip) seen in the backlight create a ‘lit flame’ effect that isn’t bad at all. 🙂

The ingredients for this recipe (actually more of a tutorial than a real recipe) are just four, and you don’t need to be a cook to make it, just a minimum of manual skill. The candles are made by cutting the cheese into sticks, the candle base is toasted bread, the flame is made from a pickle, and to garnish the base (instead of the salami that was on the candles I saw), I used a tuft of truffle cooked ham (🥳) more delicate and, in my opinion, more suitable for the Christmas table.

Do you want to try making these cheese candles too? You’ll make a great impression on Christmas day!

〰〰〰

This recipe is my proposal for the Light and Tasty column, today dedicated to Christmas recipes. As always, you will find all my colleagues’ recipes from the Team at the end.

👇 And for other festive appetizers, take a look here too! 👇

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Economical
Preparation time: 1 Hour
Portions: 10 Pieces
Cooking methods: No-cook
Cuisine: Creative

Ingredients for 10 Cheese Candles

6.35 oz emmental
5 slices multigrain sandwich bread
2 slices truffle cooked ham (about 2.5 oz)
pickled giardiniera

Tools

Cookie Cutter
Toothpicks
Knife
Peeler

Steps

Prepare the candle base by cutting the bread with a cutter (round or flower-shaped).
☝ I made candles 3 inches tall, and the bread base is made with a 2-inch diameter cutter. Making smaller candles can make smaller bases and get four per slice instead of the two per slice that I got.
Briefly toast the bread discs.
I toasted them in an air fryer; 3 minutes and they’re ready, but they can also be toasted in a pan or a small oven.
Cut the cheese into sticks.
The cheese sticks can be used as they are after cutting, in a rectangular parallelepiped shape. Or they can be rounded to make them more similar to real candles. I liked the idea of the candles being round. Even though in reality they turned out more or less octagonal. 😀
The operation is very simple: just round the corners with a peeler or a smooth-bladed knife.
Place a tuft of truffle cooked ham on each toasted bread disc (normal cooked ham or herb-cooked ham is also fine).
And assemble the candles by inserting a piece of toothpick in the base and then the cheese stick on the piece of toothpick.
😉 You can spread mustard or mayonnaise between the bread and the cooked ham, but since I used truffle ham, I avoided it so as not to cover the good truffle aroma (and thus the recipe is also lighter).
At this point, prepare all the flames.
You can get colored flames using various pickled vegetables from a giardiniera, especially peppers, carrots, and turnips, i.e., all vegetables that can be cut.
Use scissors or a smooth-bladed knife.
Small onions are fine too, but I would avoid leaving them whole: small onions are usually too round and, for me, don’t give the idea of a flame; better to use only the central part of the small onion.
Insert each flame with a piece of toothpick, then insert each flame onto the cheese sticks. With the more delicate flames (if the peppers are thin), it may be useful to do the opposite, i.e., insert the piece of toothpick into the cheese first.
Serve the cheese candles among the appetizers, individually one for each plate, or on a tray as a centerpiece. But they are also a cute idea as a place card. 🙂
If you want to make the recipe completely vegetarian, you can replace the ham with a tuft of lettuce or red radicchio (indeed, I want to put this radicchio idea into practice myself as soon as possible 😉).
Also, the emmental can be replaced with another cheese, as long as it is a compact cheese that can withstand being out of the fridge for a while, given that this is a preparation to bring to the table in advance, especially if used as a place card.
And for the base, instead of sandwich bread, you can use rustic bread. Or even rye bread, even not toasted.
I recommend cutting the toothpicks with scissors (not breaking them) to avoid splinters.
Perhaps the height of my candles is at the limit, so it might be a good idea to lower them by an inch to improve stability.
Let me know if you like this idea! And if you try them, send me the photos! I will publish them in My recipes made by you! 😍
Ah, please, don’t throw away the bread and cheese leftovers! Recycle them in other preparations! I let the bread dry and crumbled it with a blender, while I used the cheese shreds to cream a risotto. 😉
The Instagram post that inspired me is here. As for Visual Food, I discovered that the YouTube channel still exists, here.