CC Cheese Hearts

This fortnight's theme for the Cookbook Challenge is love. When I first looked at it I was perplexed. How does a recipe express love? Does it mean:

• Chocolate?
• Food with aphrodisiac properties?
• Tomato, which is also known as the love apple?
• Red food such as rhubarb and berries?
• Food shaped as a love heart?
• Cooking the desires of your true love?

I brainstormed. I considered Chocolate Prune Brownies from Bourke Street Bakery, Tomato Rosemary Scones from Vegan Brunch or even Tomato Orange Soup from Entertaining with Cranks. I suggested the scones to E on the eve of Valentines Day and he said he wanted cheese. In searching for tomato cheese scones I found Nigella's cheese stars. These star shaped biscuits became pink hearts in my kitchen with a few adaptions.

I don't have any parmesan cheese so I added some extra flavours and some beetroot powder for colour. The uncooked dough reminded me of the thin mottled slices of German sausage (aka strausberg or fairy sausage) that my mum used to put in our sandwiches in my childhood. The cooked biscuits were paler and a little puffy but still pink.

E loved these. Sylvia had a taste but she was too snuffly to appreciate them fully. They were full of flavour, buttery light on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. I served them with some creamy potato soup for dinner (recipe to come) and they were perfect. I had thought they would be perfect for Valentines Day but they were mostly gone by then. They were too good to last long.

Go to my Cookbook Challenge page to see my other dishes and ideas or to the community page to see what others are cooking in the Challenge.


Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
This time last year: Valentine Scones - raspberry and white chocolate
This time two years ago: CERES Café – a relaxing oasis
This time three years ago: WCC # 25 Velvet Soup from Nigellaland

Cheese hearts
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat
makes approx 16

50g (1/3 cup) plain wholemeal flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp garlic powder
shake of chilli powder
100g mild cheddar cheese
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp beetroot powder

Mix all ingredients together until they form a ball of pastry. I mixed mine in the food processor until it was crumbly and then pressed it together.

Roll out on lightly floured surface until about half a centimetre thick. Mine were a little crumbly but held together well once baked and cooled so don't worry if it seems a little crumbly when rolling out.

Bake at 200 C for 8-10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. They will continue baking as they cool.

On the Stereo:
Way to Blue: Nick Drake