Parmesan Shortbread Crackers
We’re dining at home all the time these days thanks to a certain global condition, so I’ve decided it’s time to up our collective happy hour game. Sure, it's very satisfying after work to simply open a nice bottle of wine or pour yourself a cocktail and relax. But wouldn’t it be better if said cocktail was accompanied by buttery, cheesy, crumbly shortbread crackers that you made yourself? I’ll answer for you. Yes. Yes, it would.
Other than the aforementioned buttery-cheesy-deliciousness, a bonus to this recipe by Nigella Lawson is that you can make the dough in advance, so when it’s happy hour time, all you have to do is slice and bake. I mean, who needs a scented candle to relax when there’s the smell of baking cheese and butter wafting from the oven?
Photo by Daniel Marks
Parmesan shortbread recipe:
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/parmesan-shortbreads
Yield:
35-40 crackers - Yes, that’s a lot! I halved the recipe, see my tips below.
Difficulty:
Easy
A few tips
If possible, use freshly grated (not shredded) Parmesan Reggiano for the best flavor. I’m sure they’ll still be very tasty if you use pre-grated, but the flavor will be richer with fresh, high quality cheese.
The recipe calls for “softened butter”. In case this isn’t obvious, to soften butter you just leave it out at room temperature until it is very soft. This may take over an hour, I cut my butter into cubes so the softening goes a bit faster. Don’t melt it with heat. This alters the butter and you won’t end up with shortbread.
Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes to firm up a bit before moving to a cooling rack.
The recipe makes A LOT of crackers. Not that that’s a bad thing, but my happy hour often consists of just me and my husband so I halved it. If you do the same, cut your baking time down to 12-14 minutes so they don’t get overdone. How to halve an egg yolk? Give it a quick stir with a fork and mix roughly half in. It doesn’t need to be super precise, but err on the side of more yolk than less.
The only hard part about making these is waiting for them to cool a little before enjoying.
