Cheese & Walnut Biscuits

This recipe for Cheese & Walnut Biscuits is based on one from Mary Berry, It closely follows Mary’s recipe, except that I use ground rice instead of semolina. That is fine though, since the ground rice will give the same crunch that semolina adds to the biscuits.

Indeed if you have neither ground rice or semolina you can use fine cornmeal instead.

The biscuits have a lovely combination of cheese with some walnuts which are chopped very finely. In fact the walnuts will become more fine still as we process the dough.

The biscuts full of flavour and with a great crunch. They are also very simple to make.

Ingredients

Flour – the recipe uses self raising flour. But if you only have plain/all purpose flour you can use that and add about 3/4 tsp of baking powder as well.

Ground rice – to give crunch. The original recipe uses semolina which has the same effect.

Walnuts – finely chopped.

Butter – cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes. You can use salted butter, and then omit any seasoning with salt.

Mustard powder – English mustard powder to give an extra flavour kick.

Parmesan Cheese – this is the cheese element. Grating it makes it easy to incorporate into the dough.

Egg white – Just a little to help bind the dough together.

Poppy seeds – to coat the outside of the biscuits.

Salt & Pepper – to season to your own taste.

Process for Cheese & Walnut Biscuits

This is all very easy, particularly in a food processor. But you can do it by hand too if you rub the cold butter into the other ingredients.

Simply place everything except the poppy seeds into a processor and blitz them until a soft dough forms.

Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a log. Then roll it in poppy seeds to coat the outside.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes.

Then cut thin slices, about 1 cm thick, and place them on a lined baking tray.

Bake the biscuits for 13 to 15 minutes, until they are golden brown. As they cool they will become nice and crunchy.

My Cheese & Walnut Biscuits

Although the original recipe said it makes 20 biscuits I got 19. But then I wasn’t too precise with how I sliced mine.

They were in the oven for just 13 minutes, as they rose and spread and coloured well on top in that time. I let them sit on the baking trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Then I was able to enjoy the wonderful crunch and flavour of a perfect little biscuit. The texture, so melt in the mouth, was crunchy and just perfect. I think they are great just as they are, but I can see that they would also work well with some dip, or even broken up and sprinkled on soup.

Another easy biscuit recipe is Golden Crunch Biscuits – Cookies.

Cheese & Walnut Biscuits

Recipe by (Based on a Mary Berry recipe)

Course: Biscuits, CookiesDifficulty: Easy

Servings

20

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

15

minutes

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on

Ingredients

• 50g(1/3 cup, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) self raising flour

• 30g(2 1/2 tbsp) ground rice

• 15g(2 1/2 tsp) finely chopped walnuts

• 75g(5 tbsp + 1 tsp) unsalted butter, cold and cubed

• 22ml(1 1/2 tbsp) beaten egg white

• 3g(1 tsp) mustard powder

• 50g(1 cup) grated Parmesan

• Salt & Pepper to season to taste

• 30g(1 1/2 tbsp) poppy seeds

Directions

• Place the flour, ground rice, walnuts and mustard powder into the bowl of a processor. Season to your liking(bearing in mind that the Parmesan will have salt in).
• Pulse a few times to combine.
• Add the Parmesan, butter and beaten egg and process until everything comes together into a soft dough.
• Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it into a 12cm(4 3/4 inch) log.
• Spread the poppy seeds into a tray and then carefully roll the log in the seeds until the outside is fully coated.
• Wrap the log in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/375F.
• Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper, or silicone mats.
• Slice the dough into 1cm discs and place them on the trays, leaving a good gap between each.
• Bake the biscuits for 13 to 15 minutes, until they have risen a little and spread, and coloured to a nice golden brown.
• Take them out of the oven and leave them on the trays for 2 or 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.