Recent bakes I’ve taken in to work have been very sweet, so it’s time for a more savoury dish, so I’m going to a spicy cheesy biscuit, adapted from a recipe I found in Baked and Delicious magazine – which Soph and I highly recommend! It’s worth the subscription cost for the magazine alone, which always has multiple things we want to bake, but each issue comes with free silicone cookware. Granted silicone isn’t always the best choice of cookware, but if, like us, you don’t already have top quality versions of every type of dish, tray and tool, it’s a really great way to build up your tools and learn which items you do want to invest money in later.

When I re-read the recipe just prior to beginning baking, I noticed that there wan’t any cumin in the biscuit itself, just jeera seeds on top. (Oh… language note: I shall use the terms biscuit and cookie interchangeably, same goes for cumin and jeera.) I asked Soph if I should add cumin to the biscuit itself, and of course she’ll never say no to more cumin, so she said yes! I was planning to add 1/4 or 1/2 tsp of ground cumin, but Soph said it would look better with seeds in the biscuit, so I went with her advice.

So for the biscuits:

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg, beaten
• 200g butter, cut into small cubes
• 175g Gouda cheese, finely grated
• 2 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds

This all gets put into a bowl and then mixed and kneaded by hand.

Once fully incorporated it gets formed into a dough, wrapped in plastic, and popped in the fridge to chill for an hour.

As you can see there are still some large chunks of butter in there, but I’ve followed instructions in the recipe… so we’ll see how it turns out!

For the topping:

• 75g Gouda cheese, finely grated
• 3 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds
• 75g walnuts, crushed

I crushed the walnut using the pestle and mortar.

The nuts and seeds get mixed, but the cheese stays separate.

After chilling the dough gets rolled out.

These go onto lined baking trays, and get topped with cheese then the nut and seed mix.

These go into our oven for 14 minutes, swapping heights half way through, so they edges are just starting to get colour.

After a couple of minutes they get transferred to the rack to cool fully. And by ‘fully’ I mean we tasted then about 1 minute later!

They taste amazing! Subtle cheese, with lovely warmth from the cumin, and a light crispy texture from the biscuits that are like puff pastry: the the big bits of butter were supposed to be there apparently!

Hmm given I didn’t mention the walnuts… maybe they’re not needed?

for the biscuits:

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg, beaten
• 200g butter, cut into small cubes
• 175g Gouda cheese, finely grated
• 2 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds

Mix in bowl by hand, knead in butter, then form into dough. Cover in cling film (plastic wrap) and chill for an hour.

For the topping:

• 75g Gouda cheese, finely grated
• 3 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds
• 75g walnuts, crushed

Mix nuts and jeera.

Roll out dough, cut 6cm discs, put on lined baking tray, top with cheese, then nut&seed mix.

Bake at 170c fan (190c/375f/gas 5) for 10-15 minutes, until turning golden brown. Put baking sheet on cooling rack for 2 minutes before removing cookies with palette knife and cooling fully on the rack.