crunchy cheese cookies

For Chinese New Year in 2009, I baked chewy cheese cookies (amongst other goodies) and brought them to Muar, Malaysia. The feedback from some of my relatives was that they would prefer the cheese cookies to be of the crunchy type.

Ta-da! This time, I have baked crunchy cheese cookies. Instead of grating the cheddar cheese, I decided to use sliced cheddar cheese and to cut them into small squares.

INGREDIENTS

400g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

325g butter (softened)

180g brown sugar

1 egg (beaten)

6 slices of cheddar cheese (cut into small squares)

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius.

2. Sift the plain flour, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon in a bowl. Set aside.

3. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg and cheese. Mix well.

4. Fold in the flour and mix until combined.

5. Using both hands, roll the dough into small balls. Place the balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press down the balls using the flat portion of a fork.

6. Bake for 18 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.

7. Let the cookies cool thoroughly before storing them in an air-tight container.

TIP

If you want a bit of spice in the cookies, you may like to add 1 1/2 tsp of chilli powder when folding in the flour. I omitted it when I baked the cheese cookies as I do not eat chilli (erm... except when it comes to the famous Muar otah....).