Bake Along with GBBO: Sea salt water biscuits

I've rarely venture into the biscuits side of baking. My Mum makes the best shortbread ever, so I don't even attempt to make them. Aside from that, I've never really been unhappy with a good rich tea out of a packet to accompany my cup of tea.

It wasn't until watching The Great British Bake Off that it even occurred to me that I could venture into the savoury biscuit and cracker side of the equation. It's safe to say that I'm a big cheese fan, in fact anything dairy is good in my books and if I could live off cheese, ice cream and chocolate milkshake alone I'd be a very happy Bethan. If anyone ever wants to win me over, they should be your three weapons of choice. Anyway, I'm being sidetracked by my love of dairy here.

Back in September I attended Abergavenny Food Festival and purchased a truckle of Green Thunder cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese stall. We tried a sample and instantly fell in love with it. It's been sat in my fridge ever since, as I felt it was almost too good to eat. Alas, the best before date is looming and I've discovered they have an online store and I can buy it from the incredible cheese shop in town, so it's about time I ate it! Is it odd to ask for cheese for Christmas?

I decided to make it my quest to make a biscuit to accompany this lovely garlic mature cheddar. Turns out, I'm pretty sure everyone just buys their crackers as the only recipes I could find were for big chunky cheese flavoured savoury biscuits or thin but laden with all sorts of flavours.

I eventually found a recipe for water biscuits on the forever useful BBC Good Food website. They seemed the perfect vehicle for my cheese. Crispy for some added texture but plain enough to not overpower the cheddar and garlic flavours. Not going to win any awards from Paul and Mary, but just what I needed and super easy to make.

Ingredients
Taken from BBC Good Food

200g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
50g cold butter, cubed
Flaky sea salt
Water

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/ Gas mark 4 and line two baking trays with parchment. Add the flour, baking powder, butter and half the teaspoon of salt in a food processor and then whizz for one minute until the butter is completely mixed in with the flour. Add 4 tbsp of water and whizz until the dough comes together. If it still feels dry, add another teaspoon of water until you have a soft but not sticky dough.

2. Lightly flour the surface and roll out the dough into a rectangle about 50 x 25cm and as thin as possible. brush a little water over the dough and sprinkle with sea salt. Prick the dough all over and then cut into 18 squares. Place on the trays and don't worry if they stretch a little. Bake for 10-15mins until they're dry and sandy feeling but still pale. If they still feel a bit soft don't worry as they harden when cooled. Place them on a wire rack to cool completely. If you don't scoff the lot straight away, they'll keep for about 2 weeks in an airtight container.