Hard Yellow Cheeses Flavored with Coffee, Chocolate and Sour Cherry Coming from Arandjelovac Area

Zorica Savic from Vencane near Arandjelovac, produces home-made hard yellow cheese (“kackavalj”) from cow milk from her own farm. Her recipe also includes herbal spices, nuts, chocolate and fruit, which give the cheese an unusual flavor.

The Savic family is active in agriculture and livestock breeding. The cows and the sheep are mostly cared for by Zorica, who, as she says, works all day. Her day begins by feeding and milking the livestock, after which she makes delicacies from the milk.

Two years ago, due to the coronavirus, the sale of cheese and clotted cream (“kajmak”) dropped suddenly. In order to avoid wasting the milk, Zorica decided to start making natural-dried kackavalj, which features molds and has a longer shelf-life.

– I saw on a website that people make these cheeses with hot peppers and basil, and I wanted to add something more, so I started experimenting. I introduced peanuts, sesame, coffee, and that was not enough, so I added smoked oyster mushroom and this kackavalj smells very good – Zorica says.

She has made cheeses with 14 different flavors. There are also baked ones, not just smoked ones – with sausage and bacon, which she mostly sells online. The customers are ordering those more exotic ones more and more, those with coffee, chocolate, sour cherry…

– They can be mailed and they are packaged in special cardboard boxes. They are easy to package and send. It’s not like traditional cheese, which has whey in it, so it can’t be mailed – Zorica explains.

The kackavalj cheeses are dried in a cold environment in a special room for 10 to 15 days, which is why they are ordered in advance. They can last outside a fridge in a cold environment for the same number of days, and Zorica claims that it is only this way, through high quality, organic ingredients and flavor, that the customers’ trust can be preserved.

Zorica Savić

Venčane

cow milk

kačkavalj

herbal spices

nuts

chocolate

fruit

cheese

kajmak

clotted cream

milk

peanuts

sesame

coffee

smoked oyster mushroom

flavored kačkavalj

sausage

bacon

sour cherries