Building a Dessert Cheese Board: What Works and What Doesn't

What separates a good dessert board from a forgettable one is intention. Every sweet thing should earn its spot by doing something specific next to a specific cheese.

Pick Your Cheeses First

Three is enough. More than that, and half the board goes untouched.

Go with one creamy cheese – Brie or triple-cream Brillat-Savarin. Then something aged and crumbly – aged Gouda or Parmigiano-Reggiano (yes, on a dessert board). And a blue – 
Gorgonzola Dolce or Roquefort.

Why these three? Each one responds to sweetness differently. Brie melts into fruit pastes. Aged Gouda's caramel crystals love dark chocolate. Blue cheese with dates has been a thing for centuries because salty-sweet at that level is hard to stop eating.

The Sweet Stuff That Earns Its Spot

Which honey you grab matters. Clover is safe. Buckwheat is better – darker, almost molasses-like next to salty blue. Truffle honey on Pecorino sounds pretentious but it's just really good.

You need dark chocolate – 70% cacao minimum, smashed into rough shards. Milk chocolate can't hang next to anything aged. Fill gaps with dried apricots, Marcona almonds, and fig jam.

And here's one for adult-only boards – cannabis-infused baked treats like brownies or butter cookies. These have been quietly making their way onto dessert spreads at house parties. A thick chocolate brownie beside aged Gouda sounds random until you taste it. The baked richness and salty caramel notes lock together in a way plain biscuits don't. They also guarantee nobody walks past your board without stopping.

Drinks and Layout

Tawny port and aged Gouda is basically perfect – the caramel in both just stacks. Moscato d'Asti works next to Brie and fruit. Off-dry Riesling punches above its weight across the whole board. For non-drinkers, cold brew coffee next to salty blue and dark chocolate is kind of a revelation.

Put each cheese near the things that taste best with it. Gouda next to dark chocolate. Honeycomb by the Brie. Dates beside the blue.

Where It Usually Goes Wrong

Overly sweet additions wreck these boards. Canned fruit, candy, maraschino cherries – all of it bulldozes the cheese. Eight cheeses and a dozen accompaniments means nobody tastes any single pairing properly.

Three cheeses, four or five accompaniments. That's it. Edit hard.