Celebration Cakes FAQ's

All of our cheese is sent out in it's original packaging if possible as this is best for the cheese.  You will need a sharp knife to get into any vacpacked cheeses (the worcester hop/whittington oak if they are in your stack) and it's best to have some clingfilm to hand to use when handling the cheese so you don't need to touch it.  Some of the blues can be a bit juicy when you open the packaging (particularly whole cashel and baby oxford blues so it's also worth having some blue roll/kitchen roll handy.  Just open them up an pop them on the absorbent roll to take away any extra wetness and give them a dab before you stack it up.Most of our wedding cakes will stand under their own weight, you can literally just stack them up in the order in the picture and they will be fine, no dowel or anything required. The only cakes you will need to dowel are those with bries or delice lower down in the stack.  These are freya and Jessica, (will always need dowelling to be safe then Elizabeth, Evie, Fleur, Teya and Tilly if it's hot).Dowelling can be as simple as some wooden kebab sticks or chopsticks cut to the height of the soft cheese. The harder cheese can then be placed on the top.  If you have a soft cheese in the stack we will send it in a box, so this is always another option, just stack it up in the box for stability.There is no decoration supplied with any of the cheese stacks.  A few flowers/figs/grapes/herbs can work wonders!

Please order for a Wednesday or Thursday delivery if you can for a weekend wedding and at least 2 days before you need it or are leaving the delivery address if you're travelling.  Since covid, the couriers no longer guarantee a 24 hour delivery, although 99 out of 100 do get there in time.  Obviously you don't want to be the one that doesn't if it then means your wedding cheese is in a depot for the weekend! 

We put plenty of ice in so if it takes 48 hours the cheese will be fine and at least then if there's a broken van or someone off sick you'll still get your cheese in time for your big day!

PLEASE leave us delivery instructions of a safe place to leave it, or a neighbour etc so it is left by the courier and doesn't risk going back to the depot - even if you are planning to be in!

Vitally important - if it doesn't arrive on the day you have ordered it for , please get in touch straight away then we can chase the courier and often get it bumped up to a morning delivery so it will be prioritised. Do not leave it, even if they say it will come the next day.

We love early orders, so we can ripen everything to perfection although we do hold some stock for our wedding cakes.  4 weeks is our sweet spot in terms of notice but do get your order in if you want to be sorted.

You choose your delivery date in the checkout, please see above for delivery date advice.We can of course take last minute orders but we only keep so much cheese in stock so if we get a lot of late orders we need to swap things around a bit but we would always get in touch if that was the case, we never substitute without getting in touch, so please leave your number and answer if you get a call from an 01432 number.

We often tweak the wedding stacks on the site to suit peoples tastes.  We are obviously limited by the sizes of the cheeses available but we can mock things up so you can get an idea how things look and recommend substitutes if you have doubts about something in a stack, just get in touch at info@mousetrapcheese.co.uk and let us know your thoughts. It's useful if you please include information on number of guests and other food available.

You definitely can! Jjust get in touch to info@mousetrapcheese.co.uk. We sell over 150 cheeses in the shop and not all are listed on the website, and even then we can get most things so if you've got a plan and would like to check out our pricing, let us know.

If you know what cheese you like, but not how it would work in a cake, it's often easier to use our expertise in this matter so do drop us a line, outlining what you're trying to create, or want to include and we can advise on options and prices. We are limited by the sizes that the cheeses are, but many come with multiple size options so it's often a case of a little rejig and we can sort you out.

As a guide, we suggest having 50g - 100g per person, 50g if the cheese is to be eaten straight after a meal and more if it's being eaten in the evening and your guests might need to soak up some booze! 

We find about 75g per person about right for an evening do if you don't want any leftovers - if you've got half a rugby team coming, go for the 100g..

If you need a hand with the maths:

amount you think you need per person x amount of people = amount of cheese in grams

So 75g x 65people =4875g

Then to make it into kg so you can browse the cakes, just divide by 1000.

4875/1000 = 4.875kg. So anything around 5kg would be great for 65 people fpr an evening do.

Whether you’d like a stunning stack or an eclectic board for your buffet, we’d be delighted if you could join us for a tasting in one of our shops in Ludlow or Hereford. Just contact us at info@mousetrapcheese.co.uk for an appointment. Unfortunately we don't offer appointments in December as we're just too busy, but January is an excellent time!

You can buy sample packs of any of our online cheeses, just have a look in th e cake listing.

If you can't come to us, just drop us a line and we can help you choose a bespoke wedding cheese tower from afar. We can advise on quantities needed, types of cheese and help you to choose a fantastic selection for your budget. We can send out a sample of cheeses for you to taste if you'd like to, helping you to make your decision on the perfect stack for you, ensuring you will impress even the most exacting of cheese buffs!

For celebration cheeses, we will try to send the soft cheeses so they will be nice and ripe and lovely for the weekend following the delivery (this is mostly on or around their BB date). If you are ordering for an event and need a delivery more than a week before you'll be eating it, let us know in the message in the checkout, when you'll be eating it and we'll make sure that the cheese has enough date on.

The larger and hard cheeses will often have weeks if not months of date on their packaging, but as soon as you open it and cut it that will reduce.

In the fridge cheese lasts different times depending on what it is:

Parmesan/very hard cheese
Up to 3 months

Cheddar/hard aged cheeses
6 to 8 weeks

Gouda/younger hard cheeses
4 to 6 weeks

Blue cheese/brie
2 to 3 weeks

Mozzerella/very young cheese
6 to 8 days

Don't forget you can freeze cheese so if you've got lots left, potion it up and pop it in the freezer.

Now this is a difficult one.

A. it depends on the size of the cake.

Larger volumes of cheese will take longer to warm up than smaller ones. You do want it to be at room temp for eating so it's good to be out for at least an hour.

2. it depends how hot it is.

Don't put it near a radiator, a sunny window, or anywhere else that is likely to get hot. Keep it in as cool an environment as possible.

So within the constrains of the above. a cheese cake of around 4kg, which is probably about average will take a good few hours to warm up at room temp and then cheese is ok to be out for up to 8 hours. Pasteurised cheese and hard cheese is safer in this respect than unpasteurised blue and soft cheeses as they're the more dangerous ones in terms of bacteria growing in the warm. Most of our cheese that we use in wedding cakes are pasteurised for this reason.

Basically you've got to use common sense within the environment that you're setting up the cheese.

One suggestion if you want to set up and decorate in the morning and then have it later, if you can't leave it in a fridge or a cool box (which would be best), is to use a box that is a size that you can pop over the whole thing - refreeze our ice packs and then you can just create a little mini cool environment over the cheese with the ice packs in and the box popped over the top, then you can have the ceremony knowing it's fine and have someone whose job it is to unveil the cheese later.