snack thyme

I decided to make some savoury biscuits today, to accompany some post-dinner cheese this evening.

These cheese and thyme mini biscuits were super quick to make with very few ingredients, and the dough can be made in advance and frozen so it would be easy to serve them fresh from the oven when you have guests.

I've written out the recipe I used below if anyone fancies making some. (I will certainly be making them again).

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Cheese and thyme mini biscuits
Make approx. 40 (depending on size)

Ingredients

4 tbsp soft butter
¾ cup grated mature chedder
¼ cup grated parmesan
¾ cup plain flour
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme (or half the amount for dried thyme)
1 tsp English mustard powder
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Mix the two types of cheese and butter together in a bowl.

Add the flour, thyme, mustard powder and salt and combine to form a dough.

Roll the dough into a thin log, roughly 2-3cm in diameter. At this point I split the dough in half, so I could freeze some for later.

Wrap the log in cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for around half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line a baking tray with baking parchment (you may need two if you are doing the whole mixture in one batch).

Slice the dough into 5mm thick pieces, place on the baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes, until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool - they taste good warm so make sure you try one while they're fresh from the oven!

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I think this recipe would also be great with rosemary instead of thyme, or if the mustard powder was substituted for cayenne pepper. Oh, and I might add some poppy seeds next time.





They're really tasty. I'm finding it hard to resist eating them all ahead of dinner.

let's cook: soufflés

The cooking challenge is back!

This time we chose to make soufflés. The flavour was optional so we've ended up in a sweet vs. savoury situation, which is quite nice.

My mum went for a GIANT cheese soufflé:



While I made mini chocolate soufflé pots:


[Note: The zoom on these photos may be misleading]

I made mine to accompany a delicious meal made by Mark. They went down a storm - they rose well and were nice and gooey. We have since had them again at home (courtesy of Mark) so that's a positive seal of approval.

My dad gave my mum 5 out of 5. Top marks! Although he said he wouldn't want to eat it again. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it did look quite a substantial feast.

A good result all round. And in the process I discovered that making a soufflé is far less complex than I first thought. I thought it was all egg whites and whisking, but my recipe involved none of that kerfuffle (maybe I cheated?).

Here's the recipe though, so you can judge for yourselves:

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Mini chocolate soufflés
(enough to fill 8 ramekins)


Ingredients
200g dark chocolate
150 butter (plus a little extra for the ramekins)
6 eggs
175g sugar
125g plain flour


Instructions
Heat the oven to 180ºC and butter the ramekins.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water.

Beat the eggs with the sugar until they are very fluffy and light and then fold in the flour, followed by the chocolate and butter mixture.

Divide between ramekins (you can put some in the fridge at this stage if you want to eat them later).

Bake in the over for 8-10 minutes. They should rise slightly and have firm outsides whilst still being nice and gooey in the middle.

Dust with icing sugar and serve hot.

I would recommend vanilla ice cream and honeycomb as a great accompaniment.

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Enjoy!!!



Next time we will be cooking decorative shortcrust pastry pies. Just in time for British Pie Week.

let's cook: chutney (the results)

As I mentioned before the cook-off challenge between me and my mum for November was some festive chutney, to accompany the Christmas cheeseboard.

There were a couple of independent adjudicators this time and the overall consensus (from myself included) was that the Mary Berry recipe that my mum followed was a favourite. The chutney I made was popular but was quite a bit sweeter in comparison, which is better in much smaller portions I think.

When it came to the scores though, we were awarded 8 points each as my mum had a mark docked for unoriginality (she used the recipe I already tried and tested last year). At least none of us had points deducted for lack of meat this time.

I think we might continue this challenge in a less formal format over the next year - setting the task of one thing a month didn't work out too well for us but we both like the friendly competition and the chance to try new things.

But what next?

success!

The Christmas chutney turned out to be a big success. In fact, I had cheese and chutney for brunch today (a new year treat). And the christmas day cheeseboard was immense. I counted 12 cheeses. Lovely.

The recipe made about a kilo and a half of chutney which meant I could share it out amongst many small pots for friends and family. I only wish there had been more leftover for me...

I'll definitely try another batch again this year (I might double the quantity next time though!)