Harrogate blue cheese and pecan biscuits
These nutty, cheesy, gluten-free biscuits are great for serving with... more cheese! Created for a demo I gave at the Cake & Bake Show in Harrogate, I wanted to use an appropriate local cheese and this Harrogate Blue by artisan cheese maker Shepherds Purse did the job perfectly. The demo was an interactive one, with the audience baking along at the same time, which was a little unpredictable but great fun! One participant described the dough as 'clarty' which, for non-Yorkshire folk, means thick and sticky, a bit like peanut butter. If you can cope with a bit of clartiness, you should be well rewarded with some very tasty biscuits.
Makes about 16 biscuits
Ingredients
100g pecans, finely ground using a food processor or nut grinder
30g pecans, roughly chopped
60g gram flour, plus extra for rolling
30g polenta
50g Shepherds Purse Harrogate Blue cheese, roughly grated or crumbled
freshly ground black pepper
a pinch of salt (optional)
1 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 large egg, beaten
Method
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the ground and chopped pecans, gram flour, polenta, grated or crumbled cheese, pepper, salt (if using) and dried rosemary.
- Add the beaten egg and mix well, using your hand to gather the mixture together until it forms a ball of soft dough. Wrap in cling film and pop it in the fridge until you're ready to roll.
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
- On a surface dusted with the gram flour, roll out the dough to a thickness of 4mm (it's a doddle if you have a rolling pin that can be set to roll a specific thickness - I use one by Joseph Joseph). Stamp out discs using a 6cm round cutter and carefully transfer them to the baking sheet. By re-rolling you should get at least 16 biscuits.
- Bake for about 15 minutes until golden and firm to the touch.
- Slide the biscuits onto a wire rack to cool.