Chilli Cheese Twists

Cheesy, Hot And Moreish

I had a burst of baking inspiration yesterday, not something that happens often as you will know if you're a regular reader, I'm not big on baking. I didn't want to replicate my original Cheese Straws recipe, but that's the kind of thing that I wanted to make, this was one of the new creations that turned out good enough to share.

If you follow this recipe you will get double the amount that you see in my photos. I halved the base ingredients to make another creation because I can only bake so much, for I will eat what I bake. I'll scoff and then I'll have to diet again, not fun. Baking in moderation for me.

By the way, these are really, really yum, I just ate another inch of one and my mouth is happily tingling from the heat.

To make around 10 Twists.

Ingredients:

100g Doves Plain Flour

25g Butter (room temperature)

1 Slightly Heaped Teaspoon Xanthan Gum

1 Large Egg

100g Manchego

30 Gruyere

1 Slightly Heaped Teaspoon Chilli Flakes
Pinch of Sea Salt

They Don't Look As I Had Hoped

I have a confession to make. It's not that I'm eating another inch of a Chilli Cheese Twist, I am doing that, but this is something that I forgot to do and the reason why these don't look as I had planned.

I totally forgot to add the Xanthan Gum.

No impact on flavour but when it came to making the straws into twists, yeah, it wasn't happening without some a lot of  breakage.

Don't forget Xanthan Gum!

Directions:

• Cut the room temperature butter into cubes in a bowl

Butter Cubes

• Add the flour

Simple Base Ingredients

• Rub the butter and flour between your fingers until there is no pieces of butter left and you have breadcrumb consistency

Only Takes A Few Minutes

• Break the egg into a bowl add a pinch of salt and whisk
• Add to the flour and butter

Getting Messy

• Mix together with a spoon until a paste is formed

No Point Getting Messy Hands At This Stage

• Grate the cheese

Grated Gruyere And Manchego

• Add the cheese to the butter, flour, egg paste

One Last Ingredient

• Add the chilli flakes

Now For The Messy Bit

• Using your hands, work the mix into a flexible dough, the more kneading the better

Rough Dough Ball

• Flour (with gluten free) a chopping board and continue to knead the dough until smooth

Chilli Cheese Dough

• Leave to rest for 10 minutes
• Preheat your oven to 180C (200C non fan ovens)
• Re-flour the surface if needed and roll the dough out until 5mm thick

I Like My Chilli Flakes Abundant

• Smooth the edges of the dough by pushing in slightly with a pastry scraper

Tidier

• Use the scraper to cut into strips

Not Much More To Do

• Grease a baking tray or dish (I prefer to use butter)

Greased Good

• Twist the chilli cheese straws and place onto the baking tray or dish (this will be easy if you use xanthan gum)

Not Bad Considering I Forgot Xantham

• Put the twists into the oven and bake for 15 minutes

Done

If you like cheese and you like chilli you should love these. I chose Manchego and Gruyere because they really compliment each other and were strong enough to compete with the heat of the chilli without either flavour dominating the other. Milder cheeses would get totally lost in this recipe.

It's a few hours from the start of our Easter holiday, I intend to veg out, eats lots and probably do some silly things. I'm going to try and line up a couple of posts to go out tomorrow and Monday but if I don't manage it, Happy Easter in advance, thanks for reading and enjoy your gluten free chocolate eggs!