‘Easy as’ cheese biscuits

These were a favourite afternoon baking activity when I first had my youngest son Max. Older brother Charlie (a whopping two and a half at the time) and I would race to bake against what we called the crying-clock. Max’s tolerance for any activity not involving me holding him and singing the ‘We love you Maxi’ song was about 10 minutes.

These biscuits, I am pleased to report, can be made in ten minutes flat – and that’s with a toddler helper. Better still, the recipe can be memorised, albeit in imperial measures – easy as 1, 2, 3. Even better, they’re baked in only 10 more minutes.

INGREDIENTS

60g butter, cold and cut into 1 cm cubes

90g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

30g parmesan or other hard cheese, grated

1 large egg

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency. Add the cheese and stir with a wooden spoon. Make a well in the centre of the dry mixture, crack the egg into it and mix well until you have a very sticky, doughy mess.

Flour your work surface well and spoon the dough onto it. Cover the sticky dough with lots more flour – for once this isn’t a recipe where you have to urge children to be conservative with flour dredging. Flatten with your palm until about 5 mm thick, then cut out shapes with cutters that have been dipped in flour and pop onto the baking sheet. This dough happily re-rolls so squidge together any leftovers and pat down again.

Bake for about 10 minutes until they look a bit bubbly. Remove from the oven and let sit on the tray for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Eat in front of children’s TV with a beaker of juice or, possibly even better, after 7pm with a hunk of cheese, a few olives and a vat of red wine.

These biscuits, coming from a wet dough, go stale quickly – so eat on the day of baking or re-crisp in the oven the day after.

#normalmum #cheese #biscuits