a little something for starters...

Having done a cupboard inventory recently I realised that I had a large amount of cupboard space devoted to spices. I buy my spices in bulk and then need to store them in accumulated glass jars of various shapes and sizes.  Because they are different shapes they often don't sit side by side uniformly on the shelf, hence the reason they take up a lot of room.  I found my jars of seeds and so I was pleased to stumble across this recipe in the Saveurs magazine where I could use them.

We had a surprise birthday party for one of our friends recently. I baked these biscuits for the soirée because I had almost everything in the cupboard. After a quick dash to the supermarket for the cheese they didn't take long to whip up.  The recipe calls for Mimolette cheese. It's a semi hard cheese that is traditionally made in Normandy and Holland.  You could however use any hard cheese. Mimolette cheese works nicely because it is slightly orange and adds a lovely colour to the biscuits. 

Because it's not often that you find biscuits like this they are suitable impressive. And for the extra 2 minutes it takes to roll them in seeds you receive a healthy dose of compliments for your work. 

Cheese Biscuits

200g flour

80g mimolette cheese (or another hard tasty cheese if you can't get your hands on Mimolette)

70g butter - cut into cubes

1 egg

3 pinches of salt

2 tablespoons of sesame seeds

1 tablespoon of poppy seeds

Finely grate the cheese.  Mix the flour, salt and cheese together in a bowl.  Rub the butter in with your fingers and work the ingredients together until it resembles breadcrumbs.  

Beat the egg and then add it to the mixture.  Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water so that the mixture holds together.

Shape the dough into a cylinder approximately 30cm long.

Sprinkle your work bench with the sesame and poppy seeds.  Roll the biscuit cylinder over the seeds, pressing lightly so that the seeds stick to the mixture.

Wrap the cylinder in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Unwrap the biscuit sausage and carefully cut into slices about 7mm thick.  Try to keep them all the same size so that they cook evenly.

Place the biscuits on the biscuit tray (buttered or lined with cooking paper) and cook for 20 minutes. 

They are cooked when they have turned a delicious golden brown colour and the cheese is sizzling.

Serve cold as part of an apéro selection.