“It was a no-brainer: France had the devastatingly dishevelled Serge Gainsbourg and the religieuse au café; York had indie rockers Shed Seven and the ‘Fat Rascal’, a misshapen scone with a glacé cherry face.”

-Emma Beddington in The Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2016

A while ago I wrote a post about Lincolnshire Poacher cheese. The post was entitled a tale of coals to Newcastle as I was describing how I was taking the cheese up to some colleagues in Lincoln, together with some Ullapool Art Cake. I wrote the piece before I got there.

On arrival I was astonished to find that, unfortunately, we’d ordered the wrong cheese! Instead of Lincolnshire Poacher I’d been sent Lincolnshire Red. At least it was from Lincoln so the original thought was appreciated, and since it’s only recently been developed it had added novelty value.

Lincolnshire Red cheese, like Red Leicester only nicer; young and old-fashioned all at once

“It’s like Red Leicester only nicer” commented the MD. “I don’t usually like immature cheese but that was rather good” he added with surprise.

He’d got it right in two ways – Lincolnshire Red is indeed based on an old fashioned Red Leicester recipe. And it’s also relatively young – 4-6 months.

It has a delicate, buttery taste and The Cheese Society recommends eating it as part of a ploughman’s with “a glass of craft beer and a fruity chutney”. The MD however had other ideas. He cut a generous slice of the Ullapool Art Cake, and a thick piece of Lincolnshire Red and ate the two together declaring “excellent. It’s fat rascals!”.

And what to eat with it – a Fat Rascal is the perfect match for it, or try Ullapool Art Cake

I knew about the Yorkshire habit of eating fruit cake with Cheddar (it’s the equivalent of the Lancastrian Cheddar-apple pie combo – my father’s favourite) but I’d never heard of fat rascals – and I thought they sounded wonderful.

But I had misunderstood. I thought our MD defined the mix of the cheese and cake as being the fat rascal. I later discovered that  a fat rascal is a type of tea cake which more recently has morphed into a sort of fruity scone. My Ullapool Art Cake has the advantage of added whisky so the Art Cake-Lincolnshire Red pairing is, in my view, the ultimate!

This post is dedicated to Ian Smith.