Parmesan shortbread

Fancy a biscuit?

Made as Friday was becoming Saturday, these parmesan shortbreads were the base for a beef, rocket and horseradish canapé last night.

The good thing about the shortbread recipe rather than a pâte sablée is when you re-roll the scraps with the pâte sablée if you have too much air in it, it makes huge air bubbles when you cook them - so you end up with a mountain effect, no good for putting canapés on top. With the shortbread that just doesn't seem to happen.

Canapés. What a useful book. This is where these come from:

60g Plain flour (although I'll try ½ wheat flour and ½ rice flour next time).
salt
Cayenne pepper
45g cold butter
60g parmesan cheese, grated

You can pulse these in the food proccessor, or as I prefer, mix them by hand. Once you have a smooth dough, roll it out to 5mm thickness and stamp them out with a cutter - canape size is a 3.5cm cutter. Shapes would be good too. Place them on baking mats on baking trays 2 cm apart, and refrigerate for 30 minutes (this holds the shape when the go in the oven rather than spreading). Bake at 180 oC for 7 - 8 minutes.