Parmesan entertainers (biscuits)

My love for parmesan borders on the obsessive. I don’t mean that weird dry yellow powder that comes in a shaker bottle; I mean realparmesan cheese.

If it were up to me, spag bol would be 1 part spaghetti, 1 part bolognaise and 3 parts parmesan cheese.

It’s tangy and mature and just delicious.

In my world there is no such thing as too much parmesan. Pasta, salads, fruit, sandwiches – you name it, I’ve parmesaned it.

As an homage to my favourite hunk of cheese, I made parmesan entertainers, which are a twist on my mother’s cheese biccies.

This recipe was also posted here for the Geelong Blabbertiser.

• 1 cup plain flour
• ½ cup parmesan cheese
• 40g butter
• 1/3 cup cream
• 3 tbsp water (if mixture is dry)

Preheat your oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Mix together the flour, finely grated parmesan cheese and butter until it starts to look crumby. If you’re doing this by hand it will take slightly longer than a food processor, but it’s worth it! Add in half of the cream and mix until your dough starts to stick together. If your dough is still crumbling and falling apart, add the rest of the cream.

Your dough is ready to be rolled out when you can form a ball and there are no crumby bits left at the bottom of the bowl. Add a few tablespoons of water if your dough isn’t completely cohesive.

Lightly flour your bench top and roll the dough out to ½-1cm thick, depending on your preference. The dough won’t rise much, so whatever you roll them out to is a pretty accurate idea of how thick they’ll be when you eat them! Cut out shapes using whatever cutters you like – if you don’t have cutters, flour the rim of a thin glass tumbler and use that to cut out circles.

Arrange your shapes on the baking tray and sprinkle them with poppy seeds, cumin or rock salt (be creative, top them with whatever you want!) and pop them into the oven for 13-15 minutes, until slightly browned.

Once they’re done, transfer them to a cooling rack and resist the temptation to eat them. Serve them with dips or on their own as an appetiser.

Watch out, they’re moreish!