These are an interesting batch of cookies to make. They are savory like crackers, crunchy like crackers but are too texturally like a cookie to be a cracker. Spanish cheese cookies are very interesting indeed.

I got this recipe out my pile of magazine clippings, which brings me to the query of the day: what do I do when I make an adapted recipe, i.e. not one of my own, but do not have a source for it? What is the best thing to do? This particular snipped out recipe has the name of the magazine on part of the clipping, and by the magic of Google, I know which edition of the magazine it came from. Proper citation will therefore be presented with the recipe. What about the cut outs that don’t have the information left on the borders of them? I can assure you, dear Reader, that I will always give you all of the information available. Still, what is the standard procedure for using a recipe that is not yours, but that you do not have a reliable source for?

Anyway, I’m sure I’m boring you with the inanity of a worrier. These cookies were quite tasty and a fun thing to make on my birthday. It’s a good recipe because you can change it up depending on the cheese you have and what other delectable savory things you have in the pantry. My cookies had a mixture of sun dried tomato and kalamata olives, but I’m sure either one, or maybe roasted red peppers would make for a good cheese cookie too.  The variety I made, the ones in the recipe, would have gone really well with hummus or baba ganouj for dipping, or even for making savory cookie sandwiches. Baba ganouj cheese cookie sandwich anybody?

If your goal is to have uniform, more perfectly round cookies, roll the dough into logs and then chill them. The chilled logs of dough can then be sliced into uniform rounds, called to be around a quarter of an inch thick in the original recipe, and baked for the same amount of time. Having rolled the dough logs too thin when we made them, we formed our cookies by hand. They are less uniform, but just as good. A word of advice thougeither preparation you use, make the cookies rather flat and the size you would like them to turn out; the dough does not flatten significantly, nor does it spread.

Spanish Cheese Cookies

(Adapted from Winebar Kensington’s Spanish Cheese Cookies, Flavour Magazine, Fall 2009.)
Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 cup grated cheese (I used ¾ Cheddar and ¼ Parmesan)

½ cup butter

1 tsp thyme

¾ tsp smoked paprika

¼ tsp kosher salt, plus some for sprinkling over top

Dash cayenne

1 sun dried tomato, minced

5 Kalamata olives, pitted and minced

Directions
  • Mix all of the ingredients, except for the tomato and olives, and form into a soft dough.
  • Knead in the tomato and olives.
  • Chill the dough until it firms up, around half an hour in the fridge or ten minutes in the freezer.
  • Form the dough into flat cookies, about a quarter of an inch thick and an inch and a half round. If you please, you can poke holes and designs into them with a toothpick or fork.
  • Arrange the cookies on a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake 10-15 minutes until golden.
  • If choosing to do so, sprinkle with just a little bit of kosher salt immediately after removing the cookies from the oven.
  • Let cool and enjoy!

My good friend and kitchen helper for the day, Sam, liked the Spanish Cheese Cookies and hopefully so will you!