Maplebrook Farm Cheese: Handmade in Vermont

Fresh Vermont milk. Vinegar. Sea salt. How do cheesemakers coax so much flavor and such variety out of three simple ingredients? 

Ask Mike Scheps. He’s a third-generation cheesemaker, with an arsenal of family recipes and techniques handed down through the decades. Mike brings that deep knowledge to the production end of Maplebrook Farm, which makes an array of award-winning cheeses at their North Bennington facility.  

But it all started with the king of Italian cheeses: hand-stretched, snowy white mozzarella. In the early 2000s, Mike was making mozzarella at Al Ducci’s Italian Pantry, his father’s shop, in Manchester. A visitor named Johann Engler purchased a few balls of fresh mozzarella and fell in love with it. She brought a load back to Boston and shared it with friends in the restaurant industry. Johann and Mike joined forces in 2003, and Maplebrook Farm was born. 

Johann Engler passed away in September 2020, after 17 years of doing what she loved best: spreading the word—and taste—of Maplebrook Farm’s cheeses. Hand-stretched mozzarella, creamy burrata, fresh ricotta, whole milk block feta, cheddar cheese bites. Alex Engler joined the family business in January 2021 to head sales and marketing. He describes his grandmother as a “total warrior.” “She started this business at age 69. In that first year, she sold our cheese in 10 regional Whole Foods. She loved developing relationships with chefs, cheese mongers, and distributors, and she kept a running list of orders on a yellow pad by her telephone.” Two years ago, at 80, Alex says, “She was still doing cheese shows! She loved building the brand.”

Making cheese by hand is incredibly labor intensive. Most  commercial mozzarella proclaims “freshly made” on the label, but a machine has made that ball. “We stretch our mozzarella by hand, which accounts for the supple texture,” Alex explains. “It’s silky, not rubbery. We founded this company on our mozzarella, and it remains our signature product.”

And the magical burrata? Take a thin pliant sheet of fresh mozzarella, place a spoonful of stracciatella (hand-pulled strands of ethereally soft mozzarella soaked in cream) in the center, then twist the top into a knot to hold the precious package together. Cut into a burrata ball and the luscious creamy center oozes out, melding with whatever is on the plate: slices of summer-ripe tomatoes, a sprinkle of sea salt, a grind of cracked pepper, a drizzle of olive oil. 
To make ricotta, someone stands at the steaming kettle and ladles out fresh, creamy curds swimming in the vat of whey. 

One hand-dipped scoop at a time, the antithesis of mechanized production. To make cherry wood–smoked scamorza, a person ties a string around a fresh ball of mozzarella and then hangs it to chill and condense before shepherding it into the smoker. 
Feta and cheddar bites, Maplebrook’s only two non-Italian cheeses, are doing well, according to Alex. “Our block feta won top honors at the American Cheese Society competition in 2015, 2016, and 2019. It’s a superlative product, completely natural, and not over-salted.” Cheddar bites, small nubbins of bite-size whole milk cheddar, are squeaky delicious on their own, but even better deep-fried or in poutine.

Thanks to their skilled hands, Mike Scheps and his fellow cheesemakers transform three humble ingredients into old-world cheese perfectly suited for today’s finest meals. And to this day, Al Ducci’s Italian Pantry, now owned by Robin Ryan and Patricia Vunk, shares a special relationship with Maplebrook Farm with fresh deliveries daily for purchase or to enjoy in any of their prepared dishes and sandwiches.
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