Aunie Momar's Scottish Cheese Shortbread
This is a family recipe that's dead simple and a great holiday baked good for your friends who don't have much of a sweet tooth, or a great nibbly treat for a new years' party. The flavour can best be described as "God's Own Cheese Nips," and it goes very well with a dollop of red pepper jelly or tomatillo salsa. The cheese is the star of the show - DO NOT cheap out on the cheese. The sharper the better. If you're not generally one for boldness in cheeses, go a little bolder than you'd like. The baking really does soften the edge, and a mild cheese will just go bland and not taste like much of anything. For this example, I'm using extra old Balderson cheddar, because it's a 'safe' cheese and these are for co-workers, but any semi-firm cheese will do. Experiment!
What you'll need:
A 7-cup or larger food processor
2 cups (Approx. 500g) very fine cheese, grated and packed hard.
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp each paprika and salt
Tabasco or other hot sauce
Worcestershire sauce
1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)
Maldon salt (or other flaked sea salt)
Grate up your cheese. That may look like a lot, but it really isn't. A couple of 250g bricks will do you.
(Also, forgive the messy kitchen. These were taken in the height of the holiday baking bonanza.)
Pack the cheese hard into a measuring cup. You may want to grease the inside with a little of your unsalted butter.
Since I'm using regular old cheddar and not applewood smoked cheddar like I had planned, I used a bit of this salt. It goes very well in soups or stews, and it really adds a hint of something to this recipe.
M-I-X the flour into the bowl. Add the salt and paprika and stir it in evenly.
Cream the butter in the food processor. Add the cheese, a dash of worcestershire, and hot sauce to taste. We're not looking for these things to be spicy, just have a hint of peppery flavour.
Blend the cheese and butter until it's smooth.
Add the flour in three stages, blending fully at each step. Your end result may be a little crumblier than mine, but that's okay.
Put a piece of plastic wrap on a flat surface. Put HALF of your dough on the wrap, and roll it out into a log about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter, depending on how big you want your cookies. Roll the log up in the wrap, fold the edges, and place it in the fridge. Repeat with the other half of the dough. If you like, you can freeze half the dough for easy fresh-baked prep later.
Your dough should be very hard after an hour in the fridge. Now carefully slice the dough into 1/4 inch thick slices. It is very important to be consistent with the thickness. Thin ones will burn, thick ones will be doughy and gross.
Arrange the slices on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (an ungreased non-stick sheet is fine). Top each cookie with a pinch of flaked sea salt. The salt is really important, so don't miss any. Don't worry about spacing, these don't expand all that much, and if they end up touching they break apart easily.
Preheat the oven to 350F and place on the middle oven rack. If you don't have room for all of them in the oven, place the other sheet in the fridge and bake separately. It's easy to burn these things, and you really don't want to do that. Know how burned cheese tastes great? Yeah, these don't taste like that. Cook for 20 minutes, but check them after fifteen. When the tops of the cookies are hard, the shortbread is ready. Ones made with white cheese will go golden brown - you need to use your judgment with others.
Let cool on wire racks, and enjoy! These also make great bases for canapés. Oh, and don't fool yourself into thinking these are less fattening than all those sickly-sweet Christmas cookies. Better hope Santa gets you a treadmill.
Very math.
Need Cheese!
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