Fat Bottom Girl

GOODBYE CHEESE LOVERS!

 

10 YEARS OF AWARD-WINNING CHEESES • 2009-2019

Bleating Heart Cheese enjoyed a decade of cheesemaking in California.

Our last remaining cheeses were sold in 2019.

It was our immense pleasure to share our handcrafted, award-winning

"American Original" cheeses with all those who supported us.

This site is no longer being updated,

but all content about our cheeses and our history will remain here.

***PLEASE CONTINUE SUPPORTING LOCAL ARTISAN CHEESEMAKERS***

Pasteurized Sheep Milk • Aged 2 months or more
Fat Bottom Girl handcrafted American Original Cheese by Bleating Heart

We like a cheese with curves. Created in 2009 with absolutely no test batches, this is our flagship cheese, whose name was inspired by a Queen song and the cheese's accidental rotund shape. Fat Bottom Girl is approachable and appealing to both cheese geeks & novices alike. The cheese has a firm ivory paste with a toothsome bite and a touch of salt, conveying the subtle nutty & buttery goodness of sheep milk.

Fat Bottom Girl is amazingly addictive when paired with pepper jams. Enjoy this cheese with a light fruity California red such as petit syrah & pinot noir, or light farmhouse-style ales such as biere de garde & saison or a nice lager. This cheese is quite delicious with Moonlight Brewery's Death & Taxes black lager. Better yet, come up with your own fantastic pairing and let us know about it! We encourage everyone to always keep an open mind and palate.

The cheese's unique whimsical shape began as an accident when cheesemaker Seana was helping out at friend Marcia Barinaga's dairy. Seana had taken some cheeses out of their forms to be flipped, but then had to run out to get ready for the afternoon milking. Upon returning to the creamery, Seana saw the cheeses had flattened a bit under their own weight and were starting to get an asymmetrical shape with a fat bottom. It was a mistake, but it made her laugh. Seana quickly decided that she actually liked this funny look and continued to develop the process, coming up with the correct timing to achieve the desired fat bottom shape. Seana found herself frequently referring to those yet-to-be-named cheeses as "fat bottom girls," which is a song by Queen that had come up on Seana's iPod while working in the creamery. The name stuck.

Why is this cheese so often unavailable? Two reasons. One is that we only make this cheese on a seasonal basis when sheep milk is available, from around March to September. Then the sheep who produce the luscious milk for this cheese go on maternity leave every year for about 5-6 months. Each year we have to wait until the ewes are back on the job before we can start making this cheese again. Then once the ewes do return to milking, the cheese has to be made, and then it has to age. It's at least a 3 month wait from the time we make the cheese until it's available at cheese counters. The second reason is that our cheese production is limited by the amount of milk the sheep produce, which isn't much! You'd need about 20-25 sheep to produce the same amount of milk that you'd get from one dairy cow over a 12 month period.

  • GOLD MEDAL & BEST OF DIVISION, CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR 2017
  • GOLD MEDAL & BEST OF DIVISION, CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR 2016
  • 2nd PLACE WINNER, AMERICAN CHEESE SOCIETY CONFERENCE 2016
  • 1st PLACE WINNER, AMERICAN CHEESE SOCIETY CONFERENCE 2015
  • 1st PLACE WINNER, AMERICAN CHEESE SOCIETY CONFERENCE 2014
  • ***BEST OF SHOW*** CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR 2014
  • SUPER GOLD WINNER, WORLD CHEESE AWARDS 2013
  • BRONZE MEDAL WINNER, CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR 2013 
  • SILVER MEDAL WINNER, CALIFORNIA STATE FAIR 2012 
freshly unmoulded wheels of Fat Bottom Girl spend a few days on draining racks
young wheels of Fat Bottom Girl in the aging room - Bleating Heart
this wheel Fat Bottom Girl cheese is about a month old and is starting to get a nice color
wheels of Fat Bottom Girl cheese on wood aging shelves
these wheels of Fat Bottom Girl sheep cheese are almost 2 months old