Stilton and Pecan biscuits

From the ASDA freebie Christmas magazine, December 2006. Says 66 cals per biscuit, this amount makes 44 biscuits, should cost 6p each.

• 225 gms plain flour
• 0.25 tsp cayenne pepper
• 0.25 tsp dry mustard powder
• 125 gms butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
• 50 gms stilton, crumbled
• 75 gms mature cheddar, grated
• 75 gms pecans (or 44 whole or pieces of broken nuts)
• 2 medium eggs, lightly beaten – ed: – separately, you need them at different stages
• coarse salt

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4. Line 2 baking trays with paper.
2. Sift flour, cayenne and mustard together.
3. Add butter and rub in until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add cheeses, and 1 egg. Mix until it forms a dough. Knead lightly. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out between 2 sheets of clingfilm to a thickness of 5 mm. Cut into rounds. Put on baking trays.
5. Brush with egg and put a pecan on each. Sprinkle with the coarse salt. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a wire tray.

What a pants recipe. It probably works, but they could have told you to keep the eggs separate, if I see "2 medium eggs, lightly beaten", I beat together 2 eggs. Idiots. And I'm thinking that rolling out a cheese dough between 2 sheets of clingfilm, as thin as 5 mm, would not be as straightforward as they make it sound. It tells you 44 biscuits @ 5 mm thick, but not how big the rounds should be. They'd have to be pretty small to get 44 on to 2 baking trays, but then, do they tell you what size baking trays? No. If you're supposed to put a whole pecan on each of 44 biscuits, I think you might need more than 75 gms.

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