Sesame Cheese Stars Recipes

CHEESE STARS

Steps:

• Unroll the pastry and sprinkle most of the cheese over one half of the sheet. Fold the pastry in half to cover the cheese and seal it in.
• Dust your rolling pin and work surface with a little flour and put your pastry sheet on it. Roll it out until doubled in size.
• Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
• Using cookie cutters, cut the pastry into shapes and put them on the prepared baking sheets. (Put the cutters on the dough close together so that less pastry is wasted. You can fold the trimmings back on themselves and re-roll to cut out more shapes.)
• Brush the shapes with milk and add a pinch of cheese and a sprinkling of your chosen topping, if using.
• Bake in the oven for 10-12 mins or until risen and golden, then transfer to a serving plate. Will keep in an airtight container for 3 days.

CHEESE STARS

Steps:

• 1. Preheat the oven to 200C, or 180C fan assisted. Grease and flour two large baking trays.
• 2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, herbs and spices. Crumble in the stock cube and stir well until evenly distributed.
• 3. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• 4. Stir in the cheese until well distributed (I find using two forks to pull apart the clumps of grated cheese is a good method).
• 5. Mix in the egg yolk with your fingers, working the mixture to a dense dough. You may need to add a splash or two of water to achieve the correct consistency - the mixture should not be sticky, but should not leave crumbs in the bowl.
• 6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of around 5mm - this isn't too vital, but will affect cooking times.
• 7. With a star-shaped cutter, stamp out as many shapes as you can from the dough and place, slightly spaced, on the baking sheets. Re-roll the dough and repeat until you have too little left to work with.
• 8. Brush each star with a little egg white and bake in the preheated oven for around ten minutes until golden.
• 9. Remove and cool on wire trays.