Cheddar & Poppy Seed Biscuits

Last week, I felt a bit like a domestic goddess, when I picked up my kids from nursery and school and we went home to bake Autumn biscuits with the dough I had prepared earlier in the day, to herald the beginning of a new season. When it came round to dinner time and I served up, my husband pointed out it was the third time that week the kids were having pasta and sauce for dinner. Oops. Oh well, almost perfect.

Anyway, I wanted to share the recipe for these amazing tasting biscuits with you. I stumbled across the original recipe for these on Instagram, on the ‘Arthur Eats’ feed (@arthur_eats), and have adapted it to be gluten free which involved some substitutions and additions. If you’re on Instagram, you should totally follow @arthur_eats by the way – the feed is full of beautiful photographs, lots of inspiration on what to feed your kids (or adults too, the Husband LOVED these biscuits), and some recipes thrown in for good measure. A new favourite IG feed of mine for sure.

So, are you ready to make some biscuits? I chose the squirrel and hedgehog cutters, from our Ikea woodland set, to fit with our Autumnal theme (though nobody really recognised the hedgehogs as such, lol), but you can of course use your cutters of choice!

Ingredients

• 200g mature cheddar, finely grated
• 100g gluten free all purpose white flour (I use Schär flour in Germany and Dove’s Farm flour in Scotland)
• 1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder
• 1 tablespoon psyllium husks
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
• 50g softened butter, cut in to cubes
• 1-2 tablespoons water

Directions

• Mix all the ingredients together, except for the water, until it looks like fine bread crumbs. I used my hand mixer, but if you have a food processor, even better.
• Add in a little bit of water at a time, until the mixture starts to come together. I added just under 2 tablespoons. I also found it easier to switch to the dough hooks on my hand mixer, at this point.
• For the last part, use your hands to knead everything together in to a smooth, springy dough. Wrap it in cling film and pop it in the fridge for at least an hour. (I made this at lunch time and then pulled it out the fridge when I got home with the kids around half four)
• When you are ready to make the biscuits, take the dough out of the fridge and knead it through until it starts to become springy again and stops cracking.
• Pre-heat your oven to 200 C (fan oven not recommended, as it will dry out your biscuits).
• Roll it out about 3mm thick on a floured surface, then use your favourite cookie cutters to cut out shapes. We used our the hedgehog and squirrel cutters from our Ikea set, as I thought it felt a little Autumnal. Though nobody else has recognised the hedgehogs as such, haha,
• Bake the biscuits in the oven for 8-10 minutes (the original recipe suggests 10, but ours were looking like they would start to burn after 8, it depends a little on your oven).
• Try not to eat them all at once!

And that’s it! I can’t really tell you how long these keep, since they barely lasted three days and we are now already through our second lot. They are fairly soft though, and contain a lot of cheese, so it’s probably best to make them in small batches and eat them as fresh as possible.