Pete Humphries worked for Bath Soft Cheese before setting up White Lake Cheeses, based near Glastonbury Tor in Somerset. Pete's range of handmade cheeses uses milk from a 600-strong herd of goats. White Nancy - a sweet and creamy cheese with a white, bloomy rind - is the first one we're offering in the Cheese Shed. As the photo shows, these beautiful small truckles (about 4" across and 3" high) have a fabulous texture.
This is one I didn't know when we started the Cheese Shed, but what a discovery: everyone loves it here. We've used it in numerous wedding cheese cakes, and most people seem to feel the same way! If there's anyone out there who's still saying they don't like goats' cheese, give 'em some of this. If they still feel the same way I'll walk out into the middle of Mary St and throw myself under a passing charabanc.
Unpasteurised / Vegetarian. About 600g.
More About Whitelake Cheese
Whitelake Cheese is Roger Longman and Pete Humphries. When I met them, the name ‘Longman’ caught my attention straight away, as there’s a sizeable cheese wholesaler called Longman Cheese Sales based just off the A303 in south Somerset. Sure enough, he’s related to them, so Roger comes from cheese people - his own family made Caerphilly (a well established Somerset cheese, despite what the name would suggest) for 50-60 years, only giving up in 1997.
Pete - dry humour, trace of a Cheshire accent - was the first employee of Bath Soft Cheese, and worked there for 10 years: great experience, but he was keen to get going on his own. For his part, Roger was dying to get back into making, so the two teamed up and in 2004 Whitelake Cheese was born. The partnership made a lot of sense: Roger had premises, a herd of milking goats and - as you’re very aware when you meet him - a lot of energy; Pete was the experienced maker - full of ideas.
They started with a quickly-made soft cheese (relatively easy, low-risk), before creating the mould-ripened White Nancy. This was the first Whitelake cheese we became aware of, and it’s a real classic of its type (we use it a lot for wedding cakes). Pete, who has a reputation for naming cheeses after women, insists this is a hill near where he comes from.
Next came Rachel: this started out as a ‘regular’ hard goats cheese. One day a particular cheese developed some black moulds which Pete washed off with brine. This set off bacterial action which affected the character of the cheese in a way that he liked. Today’s Rachel always uses this ‘washed rind’ process and has become their biggest seller. It’s a star item, and as Pete points out, no-one else in the country makes a washed rind goats’ cheese. It’s probably a niche cheese ... but they’ve clearly made it work.
And they’re still experimenting (I strongly suspect they can’t stop) and this restless exploration is one of their hallmarks. When I visited Pete had done a market to which he’d taken 21 different types of cheese. Other Whitelake cheeses you can buy from us are White Heart, Morn Dew and the wonderful Little Wallop. And I’ve a feeling we’ll be bringing you more before too long.
