Cheese biscuits

You'd think that with this many cookbooks...



...it would be easy to find a recipe to satisfy my sudden hankering for cheese biscuits.

I looked through loads in vain - including a book devoted to cheese recipes - but eventually two old favourites came up trumps with three recipes between them.





I can't remember when I last made biscuits, so opted for the simple Cheese Biscuits from Sainsbury's Best of Entertaining (which used to be one of my favourites though I haven't opened it in years).

It just involved 4oz plain flour, 2oz butter, 2oz grated Cheddar, the yolk of an egg plus 2 teaspoons of water (in fact I found I needed more). It was very easy - just rubbing the butter into the flour till it resembled breadcrumbs then stirring in the cheese before adding the yolk and water and mixing to a firm dough. Cooking was 10 mins at 200 degrees C, gas mark 6.

The results far exceeded my expectations for a first attempt. They were a bit thicker than I expected - they seemed to fluff up a bit - but maybe I hadn't rolled them thin enough. Who cares - they tasted (and smelt) great!

Restraint proved impossible and we polished them all off in two evenings (just like with the old Cheddars slogan - "bet you can't eat just one").





I'm so taken with them that I'm now planning variations with olives, chilies etc. And I've still got the other two recipes to try - Chive Biscuits (made with soft cheese) from the Sainsbury's book and Cheesy Cocktail Biscuits from the Marks & Spencer one. This involves sandwiching two paprika/cheese biscuits (one of which has grated cheese sprinkled on top before baking) with a filling - bit more elaborate but very tempting.