Here’s how we made The Turducken of Cheese Balls: a layer of cheese stuffed inside another layer of cheese stuffed inside another layer of cheese. It was more challenging than we thought it would be.

Construction-wise, it needed a solid core onto which we could mold more pliable layers. We hit on using a small washed or bloomy-rind cheese as the central building block, and cream cheese mixed with other shredded cheeses as the layering materials. We also wanted the cheese ball to look stratified, like a cross section of a planet from a kids’ science movie. But what toppings would taste good with what cheeses? The idea of a crushed pretzel coating on the Emmentaler layer was tasteless, so it was replaced with chopped parsley and chives. Some of our other toppings were too light and thinly scattered to be visible as dark lines, so we bulked up the toppings and added figs for both darkness and flavor.

In the end, we went through over six pounds of cream cheese and over ten pounds of assorted other cheeses to get it right. (Don’t worry, we ate all the failed attempts.) The winning combination of layers weighs around five pounds and is surprisingly tasty. This is not just a novelty food—people really did go crazy for it. These were the final layers:

Washed or bloomy-rind cheese

Spanish chorizo

Manchego cheese

Dried figs

Emmentaler cheese

Chopped chives and parsley

Cheddar cheese

Asian pear

Blue cheese

Toasted walnuts

Goat cheese

Sliced almonds, pecans, and bacon

Click over to the recipe for step-by-step instructions.

Roxanne Webber wrote the original version of this post in November 2011.