I'm always on the lookout for new and original recipes and as the garden still has plenty of dandelions I thought I'd give this a try.
First to raid the garden... Plenty of dandelions and the rosemary is in need of a good trim so I have the two key ingredients already.
The recipe is simple enough
2 cups brown or white rice flour ( I used a mix of brown and white rice flour from Dove Farm)
1 cup butter ( I converted this to 8oz being an unrepentant imperial measure user)
1/2 cup honey ( I used an organic heather honey)
1/2 cup sugar ( I used a soft brown sugar)
1/4 cup grated cheese ( I used a very mature cheddar as I wanted to be able to taste it)
1/4 cup dandelion petals & greens, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely-chopped rosemary
black pepper to taste
sea salt to sprinkle on top
Firstly beat the sugar, honey and butter together until light and fluffy. As I was using my food processor blades to do this rather than the mixer I also put in the unchopped rosemary and dandelion leaves at this point. This worked beautifully. Chopping rosemary finely is not one of my favourite tasks.
At this point I transfeered the mix to another bowl and stirred in the dandelion petals and half the flour.
Once mixed I added the cheese and black pepper ( if not using a food processor you'd add the dandelion leaves and rosemary at this point as well.
I then added the rest of the flour to make a soft dough.
I then split the dough into 2 and rolled each ball into a cylinder of about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and wrapped them in cling film. They then spent the night in the fridge ( for my convenience there - an hour would be enough).
Once firm slice the dough into rounds, sprinkle with a little sea salt and bake for 20 mins at 160°C until golden. My fan oven is a little fierce so I cut the temperature to 140°C and they were about done after 15 minutes. They need to be golden brown. Leave them to cool on the baking sheet or they will disintegrate. Once they are cool they are quite robust.
The instructions said to slice into 1" thick rounds and place at least 2" apart on the baking tray. Assuming they would not rise but would spread I followed the instructions. In practice they didn't spread at all and they'd have been fine much closer together. I'd have also preferred them a little less thick so I'll cut more like 1/2" discs next time.
I found them a little sweet for my taste so although I was mean with the amount of sugar I used I'll probably leave it out completely next time and just let the honey do the sweetening.
I'm going to be taking them round to a get together at a friend's house this evening. I hope they will like them!
