Golden Cross is an ash-coated, log-shaped goat's-milk cheese made from raw milk at Greenacres Farm in East Sussex, England. It's one of the most consistently awarded British cheeses of the past decade, built on a recipe two biochemistry graduates bought secondhand from a retiring French cheesemaker.
The cheese takes its name from Golden Cross, the East Sussex village near the farm, though the specific origin story attached to that name is more folklore than documented fact.
In This Article
From Biochemistry Degrees to a Six-Acre Smallholding
Kevin and Alison Blunt met at university, Kevin studying biochemistry and Alison human biology. Neither came from a farming background.
In 1984, the couple bought a six-acre smallholding near Golden Cross, East Sussex, described as little more than a collection of small barns and a caravan.
They started hand-milking a few goats and kept free-range chickens, with no plan yet to become cheesemakers.
They Bought a French Cheesemaker's Recipe When He Retired
The Blunts originally sold their goats' milk to a local Frenchman, cheesemaker Régis Du Sartre, who was already making a Sainte-Maure de Touraine-style goat log nearby. When he retired, they bought his goats, his milking parlour, his cheesemaking equipment, and, most importantly, his recipes.
That recipe became the basis for what is now Golden Cross, which is why the cheese is consistently described as loosely based on the French Sainte-Maure de Touraine log. The Blunts began making cheese under their own name in 1989, though the business wasn't legally incorporated as Golden Cross Cheese Company Limited until 2002, a normal gap for a small farm business rather than a real contradiction.
The farm today, Greenacres Farm in Holmes Hill, remains a family operation.
Kevin, Alison, and their son Matthew run it with a small part-time staff, milking a herd of British Saanen, Toggenburg, and British Alpine goats twice daily, year-round.
How Golden Cross Is Made
The cheese is made from raw goat's milk with vegetarian rennet. A cheese starter culture and Penicillium candidum are added directly to the milk in the vat, left roughly 24 hours to coagulate into curds, then hand-ladled into moulds and drained for about a day.
Hand-ladling matters more than the equipment list makes it sound. A curd left a full day to set is fragile, and lifting it in whole pieces rather than cutting and pumping it is what keeps the finished paste dense at the center instead of grainy.
Once unmoulded and salted, the cheese is lightly charcoaled by hand, sifted onto the surface the way icing sugar is dusted onto a cake, giving the rind its dark ash coating before the white Penicillium bloom grows over it.
The ash does more than color the log. It dries the surface and takes the acidity down at the rind, which is the ground the white bloom needs before it can cover the black.
Roughly 80 to 100 litres of milk produces 40 cheeses. Kevin Blunt has said it takes 11 days to go from liquid milk to a finished cheese ready to leave the farm.
Eleven days is short for a rind that is still growing, so a log leaves the farm with its bloom only part formed and keeps ripening at the shop and in your refrigerator. A log eaten in its second week and the same log eaten in its fifth are close to two different cheeses.
Where the Name Actually Comes From
Golden Cross is a real village in the Wealden district of East Sussex, and there's a real historic pub nearby called the Golden Cross Inn, a Grade II listed building dating to the 19th century.
Retailer copy across dozens of cheese shops repeats the same story almost word for word: that the cheese is named after a cross that once adorned the pub's roof.
That detail could not be independently verified. Historic England's listing for the building describes a hipped slate roof but doesn't mention a cross ornament, and the wording is repeated so consistently across retailers that it likely traces back to a single early piece of marketing copy rather than independent local history.
Treat the pub-sign story as widely repeated folklore rather than a confirmed fact.
What Golden Cross Tastes Like
Cheesemonger Hamish Johnston of Hamish Johnston Fine Cheeses in London describes the young cheese as "subtly sweet with slight citrussy tang," with a firm interior that grows creamier toward the outer edge. As it matures further, he describes it turning "buttery, mushroomy and nutty (almost sesame-like)," with "notably low acidity for a goat's cheese."
London specialist shop La Fromagerie independently describes the flavor as lighter and less acidic than the French Sainte-Maure it's based on, turning "intensely nutty" with peanut-butter undertones at peak ripeness. Both descriptions converge on the same nutty, buttery character at full maturity, from two cheesemongers working independently of each other.
The cut face shows that split plainly. A band of soft, almost spoonable paste sits just under the rind, and the center stays chalky enough to hold the mark of the knife that went through it.
The band widens as the log ages, so where the cheese sits in its life decides how it reads. A slice off a mature log puts both textures in one mouthful, the soft edge first and the dry center behind it.
Awards
Golden Cross won Super Gold at the World Cheese Awards in 2014, then Super Gold plus Best British Cheese at the 2018 World Cheese Awards in Bergen, Norway, competing against a then-record 3,472 entries.
It has since added Silver at the 2019 World Cheese Awards, multiple Gold and Silver medals at the Artisan Cheese Awards, and Best UK Raw Milk Cheese at the 2019 Great Yorkshire Show.
At the 2025 British Cheese Awards, Golden Cross won the Reserve Champion Cup, plus Best Soft White Cheese and Best Export Cheese. The producer's own site lists further 2026 wins, though those results couldn't be independently confirmed given how recent they are.
How to Serve Golden Cross
Golden Cross works as a straightforward table cheese, served at room temperature on a board. Paxton & Whitfield recommends pairing it with Sauvignon Blanc, Champagne, or cider.
Cut the log into discs rather than wedges. A wire or a warmed blade leaves clean rounds with rind on every piece, where a cold knife dragged through drags the soft outer paste into the ash.
Hamish Johnston offers a more specific tip: the cheese's firm texture "means that it grills well," making it a good candidate for a warm salad rather than only serving it cold.
Discs around a centimetre thick take heat best. They hold shape long enough to color on the outside while the center goes soft, and thinner rounds slump through the bars before the surface has caught anything.
Serve it with something sharp rather than something sweet. The cheese runs notably low in acidity for a goat's cheese, so a pickle or a dressed green salad gives it the lift that fruit gives a board of harder cheeses.
No historically rooted local dish or village tradition beyond wine pairings and that grilling tip turned up in research, so treat any other serving idea as a modern pairing choice rather than a documented tradition.
What to Use Instead When Golden Cross Isn't Available
A young Sainte-Maure de Touraine is the closest match, since it's the French log Golden Cross was originally modeled on. A Valençay offers a similar ash-coated rind and goat's-milk tang for readers who want the same visual style.
Neither is a straight swap. Sainte-Maure de Touraine runs more acidic through the middle, and Valençay's pyramid shape changes the ratio of rind to paste with every slice you take down it.
For grilling rather than a board, pick whichever log feels firmest at the center. Ash-coated goat logs reach a counter at very different stages of softening, and one that has already slumped falls apart over heat.
Buying Golden Cross
Golden Cross is sold mainly through UK specialty cheese shops in 225 to 250g logs, with some limited export.
Ask the counter how long the log has been in. The cheese keeps ripening after it leaves the farm, so the delivery week tells you far more about how it will taste than the price or the size does.
Straits Cheese Co., a Singapore-based importer, stocks Golden Cross in case packs, confirming real export activity into Southeast Asia consistent with its 2025 Best Export Cheese award. No US retailer or importer turned up in research, likely because raw-milk cheeses generally must be aged a minimum of 60 days to be imported into the US, longer than Golden Cross's roughly 11-day farm cycle.
Case packs are a wholesale format, so a home buyer outside the UK usually reaches the cheese through a shop that breaks a case rather than by ordering direct.
Nutrition and Safety
Per 100g, La Fromagerie lists 309 kcal, 26g fat (17.6g saturated), 4.14g carbohydrate, 17.5g protein, and 1.62g salt.
A second source gives the same 309 kcal with slightly different figures, 25g fat and a lower kilojoule count, likely just rounding rather than a real conflict.
At 1.62g of salt per 100g the seasoning sits high enough to register on a plain slice. That is part of why the cheese holds its own against a sharp pickle and reads flat next to something sweet.
Because Golden Cross is made with raw, unpasteurized milk, it carries a meaningfully higher Listeria risk than pasteurized soft cheeses. Pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and anyone immunocompromised should avoid it.
Storing Golden Cross
Once cut, use Golden Cross within about a week, since the paste continues to soften and the flavor keeps intensifying even under refrigeration.
Give the log its own corner of the shelf. A bloomy rind takes on the smell of whatever sits beside it, and moisture transferred onto the ash shows up as a slick dark patch on the surface.
Rewrap it in fresh paper every time you cut it. The used sheet holds the moisture the cut face gave off, and paste pressed back against a damp wrapper turns sticky at the edge long before the rest of the log is ready.
