Cheese and Poppy Seed Twists

When I was a student I worked weekends and evenings in a corner shop – stacking the shelves and serving on the tills. I loved it, the majority of the customers were pleasant and polite and I got on really well with the other staff, we would chat and laugh all shift. The late shifts were the worst though, the shop was open until 10 or 11 pm so, especially at the weekend, you’d get all the underage drinkers trying their luck with other people’s ID, people trying to steal things, and the pressure of cashing up correctly and locking up – the most dangerous time for any shop. But one of my highlights of working these late shifts, was being able to buy the reduced items that were going to be thrown away the next day. Some freshly baked goods like croissants and bread rolls were made fresh everyday in store, so any older ones were thrown out first thing in the morning. So I would regularly go home with an armful of baked goods at the end of a night. My absolute favourite item was a cheese twist. They were quite popular so there were rarely any left over, but when there were, I could buy them for half price, run home and eat the lot in one sitting with no regrets. This is my version of those delicious after work snacks, and they’re pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself.

This is a really quick and easy recipe, great to get kids involved with too, and the end result looks impressive and tastes great. These cheese twists make for a fab snack or light lunch, or make lots of smaller versions for a party or picnic. They store really well in an airtight container in the fridge and can be eaten cold, or reheated in the oven.

Ready in 30 mins (10 mins prep, 20 mins bake) – Makes 3 twists

Ingredients:

100g of plain flour
50g of salted butter, cut into tiny cubes
Half a teaspoon of mustard powder
100g of mature cheddar cheese, grated
25g of Parmesan cheese, grated
About 50mls of cold water
A drop of milk
A handful of poppy seeds

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c / 160c fan / gas mark 4.
Put the flour, butter and mustard powder in a bowl.

Rub in with you fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the cheddar cheese and the Parmesan and mix well.

Add the water.
Draw the mix together with your fingers and knead on a lightly floured surface until you have a ball of smooth dough.

Divide the mixture into 6 equally sized pieces (about 50g each)
Roll each piece into a long sausage shape, to however long you want your twists to be.

Lay two pastry sausages next to each other on a lightly floured surface and pinch them both together at one end.

Twist the two pieces of pastry around each other and pinch together at the bottom.
Repeat with the other four pieces of pastry to make two more twists and place them all on baking parchment on a baking tray.