Obatzda
Obatzda is the Bavarian beer-garden spread of over-ripe soft cheese mashed with butter, sweet paprika and onion, eaten on dark bread or torn off with a pretzel. It began as a way to use up camembert that had gone too far to serve in slices, and since June 2015 the name has carried an EU protected geographical indication: the finished spread has to be at least half cheese, built on camembert or brie. The work itself takes twenty minutes and needs nothing but a fork. What it does need is planning: an hour out of the fridge before you start so the cheese and butter are soft, and an hour back in it afterwards so the spread firms up.
Ingredients
- 250 gcamembert
- 50 gcream cheese
- 80 gbutter
- 0.5 pcsred onion
- 3 tbspdark wheat beer
- 1 clovesgarlic
- 2 tspsweet paprika
- 0.5 tspground caraway
- 1 tbspchives
- 0.5 tspsalt
- 0.25 tspblack pepper
Method
- Take the camembert and the butter out of the fridge a full hour before you start. Both have to be soft enough to give under a thumb, because cold cheese never blends smoothly and you will be left picking out lumps that refuse to break down. The cheese should also be properly ripe: the centre bulging rather than chalky, and smelling of more than milk. An underripe camembert makes a bland Obatzda and no amount of paprika fixes it.
- Cut the camembert into rough 2 cm pieces, rind and all, drop them into a bowl with the soft butter and the cream cheese, and mash with a fork. Leave the rind in: it carries most of the smell and it is what the protected specification is built around. Stop while the mixture is still uneven, with pieces about the size of a pea still visible. Obatzda is a mashed spread, not a purée, and a food processor turns it into wallpaper paste in about four seconds.
- Add the paprika, the ground caraway, the crushed garlic, the finely diced red onion and most of the chives, then the salt and pepper. Fold rather than beat, pressing the mixture against the side of the bowl. The colour will go from pale to a warm orange-pink as the paprika comes through; if it stays streaky, keep going for another minute.
- Loosen it with the beer a spoonful at a time, until the spread just holds its shape on a knife. How much you need depends on how ripe the cheese was, so go slowly. Cover and chill for an hour, which firms it up and lets the caraway and garlic settle into the cheese.
- Take it out twenty minutes before serving, because straight from the fridge it is too stiff to spread and half the smell is locked up. Pile the reserved onion rings and the rest of the chives on top and serve with pretzels, dark bread and, if you want the full beer-garden version, a plate of thinly sliced salted radish.
FAQ
Camembert or Brie, and ripe enough that the centre bulges when you cut it. Since June 2015 the name is protected across the EU, and the specification builds the spread on those two, allowing Romadur, Limburger or fresh cheese alongside them. A firm supermarket camembert with a chalky core will give you something pale and polite that tastes mostly of butter. If your cheese is not there yet, leave it in its box at room temperature for a day or two and it will get there.
No. The rind goes in with everything else and carries most of what makes the spread smell like Obazda rather than like whipped butter. It also breaks down under a fork more easily than people expect, especially once the cheese is properly soft. The only time to trim is when the rind has gone hard and brown at the edges, which means the cheese has dried out rather than ripened.
They are close cousins from neighbouring regions. Obazda is Bavarian, built on camembert with butter, paprika and onion, and since 2015 the name carries a protected geographical indication that requires the finished spread to be at least half cheese. Gerupfter is the Franconian version, traditionally made by tearing up Romadur or Limburger rather than mashing camembert, so it is sharper and smells considerably louder. Both land on the table with pretzels and beer.
Yes, and plenty of Bavarian households do. The beer is there to loosen the spread and add a faint bitterness, so a splash of milk or cream does the mechanical part, and a teaspoon of the brine from a jar of pickles covers the sourness. What you should not use is water, which thins the fat without giving anything back. If you do use beer, a dark wheat beer works better than a pale lager, which disappears entirely.
Almost always the onion. Onion mashed into the mixture rather than folded in at the end keeps releasing water, and an hour later the bowl has gone slack. The other cause is too much beer added at once before the butter has been fully worked in. Chill it for an hour and it will firm up; if it is still loose, mash in another 30 g of cold butter or a spoonful of cream cheese. The spread should hold a ridge when you drag a knife through it, and slump only slightly.
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Comments (2)
Mit echtem bayerischem Camembert gemacht, hat sich gelohnt! Der Tipp mit dem Paprika für die Farbe ist wichtig, sonst sieht es blass aus. Dazu Brezn und kaltes Weißbier - bayrischer Abend perfekt.
Presentation is half the battle with obatzda. I serve it on a wooden board rather than a plate — it's more inviting and signals to people that they should reach in and help themselves.