A few weeks ago, my friend Anne sent me a link to a TikTok video that showed someone making an eagle cheese ball. She had thought of me when she saw it because she knew I enjoy making veggie trays in shapes.
The cheeseball was marvelously ridiculous and fun, and I loved it. I sent the link to my sister Maureen. “I’ll have to make this sometime,” I said. Minutes later I learned that her children’s school mascot is the eagle. Her older son was graduating this past weekend as an eagle, and I had already offered to help with the graduation party.
“Sometime” turned quickly into some very close time as I found myself embracing all things eagle.
The night before we left Baltimore for Maureen’s house in New York, I stayed up late into the night, rolling out cookie dough for eagle-shaped cookies. I packed them carefully in the back of our car, and we headed to New York—our family of four riding together for the first time in our newly purchased SUV.
We had plenty to focus on during our visit, as Maureen’s younger son had a ceremony to celebrate completing middle school—also as an eagle, as it turned out. Our boys slip into Maureen’s house as if it’s a second home, playing the piano, shooting hoops in the yard, and competing in video games in her basement. We arrived with a tower of board games, and the teens launched into a game of Sorry before we had cleared the dinner table.
Cousins are an incredible gift.
On our first full day there, Maureen and I went to the store with a carefully crafted grocery list. We gathered all the ingredients for the eagle cheese ball, crackers to spread it on, veggies for a “2023” veggie tray, and ingredients for a couple of dips. My nephew is heading to my alma mater, Franklin & Marshall, home of the Diplomats—or the Dips, as we call them proudly.
It would be a party of Eagles and Dips, and we would have nothing but fun getting ready for the festivities. The night before the party, while most of the household scattered to go to the movies and another graduation party (just because it’s June, June, June), Maureen’s oldest daughter and I took on the cheese ball.
We watched the TikTok over and over, laughing that the only instruction for creating the eagle is, “Form into an Eagle shape.” I kept thinking of the Wonder Twins and the episode where Jayna yells, “Shape of an eagle!” and becomes an eagle. Not surprisingly, my 20-year-old niece had never seen the Wonder Twins, but she kindly listened to me explain.
As it turned out, though, we didn’t need a superhero to make our eagle cheese ball. We worked together on mixing the cheeses for the eagle, formed it fairly easily into the shape, and then worked to figure out how to make the yellow pepper work for the beak.
We agreed that the beak looked more like a kiwi’s than an eagle’s, but sometimes you just roll with what you have.
The recipe calls for pecans for the eagle’s wings, but we were trying to be nut-free for our party guests, so we decided to use pretzels instead. I waited to put those on the day of the party since I thought they might get soggy overnight.
Worrying about the pretzels on your eagle cheese ball getting soggy overnight is the kind of concern you never expect to have.
The recipe did call for shredded mozzarella cheese for feathers, but we rejected that idea quickly. Somehow the mozzarella looked silly on our eagle cheese ball. A bald eagle is bald for a reason.
The eagle was an absolute hit. We took several photos of it, including multiple selfies, because it was just so much fun. It tasted good, too, but that was an added bonus—and definitely secondary.
Not every graduation party needs an eagle cheeseball. But your Fourth of July gathering might benefit from one. The eagle cheese ball sparked conversation and added a little extra fun—and cheese—to the table. It was a bust of an eagle, but not a bust of an eagle cheese ball. It was indeed a highlight and a memorable one.
We will never forget the graduation party with the eagle cheese ball—and neither will the guests, from the toddler who spotted the bird on the table and started cawing at it, to the high school students who pulled out their phones to get photos to text to friends.
Because sometimes it takes a little cheese to make a great party soar.
If you decide you’d like to make an eagle cheese ball for Independence Day, this is the recipe we used: Classic Cheese Ball Recipe
Here is the TikTok video showing the creation of an eagle cheeseball.
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