Man, in 2021 – COVID must’ve sent people crazy on this smoked cream cheese kick. I couldn’t scroll through y’alls posts without someone knocking out some smoked cream cheese. It was so prevalent, I decided not to do it until 2022.. didn’t need to saturate the market. Not to mention, I’ve been nagging MrsForensicBBQ to plan a Philadelphia trip for some American History ?? – so I needed to plant another subtle seed in my request.. Philadelphia cream cheese.

Recipe below for quick searchers.. I made two variations – of which you won’t see the final result (I should just quit my primary job… I’m slacking on this blog thing). Based on commentary and the lack of product at the end – it was still a success.

Recipe

I have another “4n6 BBQ Presents…” post in the works (12/16, coming soon!), so I needed a palate cleansing appetizer. Timing kind of sucked, so when i woke up and got moving, I knew I had a couple hours to mess around before the bird would arrive. That appetizer would be the smoked cream cheese.

The Prep Table

Two bricks of cream cheese for two styles. We’re going to dress one up with my Fine Swine Pork Rub and top it with the “Hot Pepper Bacon Jam”. The second is going to be dusted in “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust” and topped with “Apple Pie Filling”. We’re legit going Sweet and Savory for this one. MrsForensicBBQ bought us some Ritz/Club crackers for the savory and all they had (thanks economy) was “Mini Nilla Wafers” for the sweet. Either way, I knew it was going to work while we waited for those birds to cook. (Wait til you see how we used the Mini Nillas later!)

An odd hobby of mine is perfecting the foil tray. MrsForensicBBQ and I have a very unique marriage. My usage of paper products disgusts her. Single ForensicBBQ would always have paper plates at the ready – no longer. To avoid doing any kind of unnecessary dishes, I’ve adapted my process to include basically “foil origami”. We tore a sheet, made a raised liner, separation in the middle.. Just look at it and appreciate it.

The Process

We dialed her down to the RecTeq “LO” – which sits at a hard 180F. Not going to lie, I was skeptical that a cream cheese product would hold at 180F heat. It did, but I definitely had doubts going into it. I also mixed up my Fine Swine Rub this time around to include a cracked pepper vs. a coarse pepper grind. Jury is out on whether this was a good move – I’ll have to wait until the next pork butt is on the grates.

I do absolutely enjoy popping the lid when it’s in “LO” or “XTREME SMOKE” mode and getting overwhelmed by the smoke. It’s delicious and so welcoming. I got these in around 1030hrs (The bird was arriving at around 1pm). When this was close to done, I’d be able do dial up the RecTeq to 275 and get the birds on, so it seemed to work out perfectly.

This was about mid-way through. I did the obligatory score on the cheese. The cinnamon/sugar provided so much lighter of a color than the spicier BBQ rub side. I thought MrsForensicBBQ would enjoy the cinnamon/sugar blend – even though she’s not a cinnamon fan. (Can we be any more different?)

The Result

When I pulled these out, I topped it so beautifully with an even spread of the toppers. You won’t know it because I didn’t take a picture. The apple pie filling was glossed over the top of the cinnamon/sugar blend and the accompanying apples placed evenly over. The pepper jam on the savory cream cheese had such a beautiful red covering – but again – you won’t know it because your favorite food blog failed in it’s photography.

Deal with it.

Here’s your honest result: It was better than regular cream cheese. Was it worth the 2021 hype from every food blog? Nah, not at all. I used a blended wood pellet, so I wasn’t going to get a heavy smoke, nor overly sweet… not to mention an overpowering smoke from a pellet smoker. It was good, just definitely not worth the hype. I’ll make it again if I need a quick appetizer, but nothing as an all-star main event kind of smoke.

The Recipe