This week on the Great British Bake Off the theme is biscuits – and what a lovely theme it is. Who doesn’t eat biscuits? Not the healthiest of snacks but certainly a tasty one, we always seem to have a packet in the tin at work which is dangerous, but quite helpful when the afternoon 3pm slump looms.

At home, we are fairly good and don’t often buy biscuits – i do make them sometimes though. Last week i made some condensed milk cookies because we had half a can of condensed milk left over (from drinking vietnamese coffee) and didn’t want it to go to waste. The recipe for those is here if you’re interested…

This week, i decided it was savoury biscuit time!

Blue Cheese and Poppy Seed Biscuits

I LOVE CHEESE

This will not come as a shock to anyone who knows me, if there was a cheese-aholics anonymous i would probably be a member (although i have no intentions of giving up my addiction, maybe just rationing myself a bit more!)

But anyway…

These biscuits are buttery, crumbly, cheesy and delicious. I like the extra texture the polenta gives them too. They are perfect with a glass of red wine, and they would make a cute present for someone who likes cheese!

If you’re not a blue cheese fan, firstly what’s wrong with you? (Joking), secondly, feel free to swap the blue for some cheddar or other semi-firm cheese and i’m sure it will taste (almost) as good 😉

Recipe taken from Delicious Magazine

Makes approx 25 biscuits

Ingredients

150g Blue Cheese (I used Stilton), roughly chopped

100g Unsalted Butter, softened and roughly chopped

1 Medium Egg Yolk

100g Plain Flour (and extra for rolling out)

75g Quick-Cook Polenta

Poppy Seeds for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 200C.

In a bowl or mixer, combine and mash together the cheese and butter.

Add the egg yolk, sieved flour and polenta, and mix until it forms a stiff dough.

Form into a ball, wrap in cling film and put in the freezer to firm up for approx 10 mins.

When ready, roll out onto a floured surface until approx half a centimetre thick.

I did this in stages, as i found the dough wouldn’t stick together if i tried to roll out the whole lot in one go.

Cut with a cookie cutter – i used a 58mm one. Scoop up the offcuts and roll them into a ball, to roll out and use up as much of the dough as possible.

If you don’t have cookie cutters use a cup, or roll the dough into a log shape and cut into slices instead!

Line a tray with greaseproof paper and put the discs on.

I managed to fit about 16 on one tray…

Sprinkle each disc with poppy seeds and press down lightly so they stick to the dough.

Put in the oven for 12-15 mins, until golden brown

 they smell so good in the oven, you may try to get them out early!

When ready they will look a bit like this! Place on a wire rack to cool.

we managed to leave them for about 2 minutes before diving in – they are really nice warm though…

Enjoy!

N.B. I have kept some of the dough from this in the freezer to make on a different day, as i didn’t have time to do two batches. If you do this, let it defrost and warm up a bit before you try to roll it out!