Parmesan Shortbread Biscuit (3 ingredients)

Butter, flour and parmesan. That’s all you need to make buttery parmesan shortbread biscuits. And you’ll be amazed how fast these are to make – no cookie cutter required! Watch the 15 second video here to see how easy these are to make!

PARMESAN BISCUITS

My mother makes these incredible parmesan biscuits that I frequently beg her to make. Until recently, I had no idea they were made with just 3 ingredients: butter, flour and parmesan. Nor that they took all of 2 minutes to make the dough.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?!” I exclaimed. “If I’d known they were that easy, I would have been making them myself!”

“I don’t know,” she said calmly. “I just never thought of it. They aren’t that special.”

“Aren’t that special?” I gasped, flabbergasted. “These are my favourite biscuits.”

“That’s so typical of you,” she said. “Just because it’s got cheese in it.”

OK, well that’s true. I couldn’t argue with that. And of course, having discovered they were made with only 3 ingredients, I declared them to be so fabulous that I had to share them on my blog.

These biscuits are savoury shortbread biscuits, which means they are buttery and crumbly, just like the sweet ones.

Except these are cheesy. Parmesan cheesy.

You barely need the recipe for this. Butter, flour and parmesan, whizz until crumbs form, form a log, wrap in cling wrap, refrigerate, slice, bake for 12 minutes.

3 ingredient magic. That’s what this is. Honestly, these exact biscuits are sold in a certain up market grocery store in Sydney (which shall remain unnamed!) for close to $10. And you get less than one batch of this!

I have 2 words of caution about these:

1. Making as a gift: If you make these with the intention of gifting them, please just make a double batch. Don’t kid yourself into believing that you won’t “taste test” so many that you end up with a dismal scant pile for your friend, so small that you can’t possibly give that as a gift so you end up doing an emergency present run énroute to the birthday lunch; and

2. To nibble with wine: These are brilliant to have as nibbles. But they go a little too well with wine. What happens is that that the cheesy buttery biscuits make you thirsty, so you drink more, and the more you drink the more you nibble. An endless viscous cycle. So as with #1, just make a double batch. 🙂

OK, so #1 may have happened to me last weekend. And come to think of it, #2 as well. Oops.

Happy weekend! – Nagi x

PS Please do not count the biscuits in the photos below. I can tell you now, there are 5 missing!!!

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Parmesan Shortbread Biscuits

Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats

Prep: 10 mins

Cook: 15 mins

Total: 25 mins

Savoury Biscuits

4.85 from 39 votes

Servings25 -30

Tap or hover to scale

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These buttery biscuits have the texture of shortbread with the kick of parmesan cheese flavour. The biscuits are buttery and have a "soft crumble" when you bite into them. IMPORTANT: Please ensure you measure the ingredients by weight. Cup sizes measure between countries and so for accuracy reasons, I have written the recipe by weight rather than cups because this recipe requires accurate measurement of ingredients to achieve the desired result.

Ingredients

• ▢ 3.5 oz / 100g salted butter , chopped (Note 1)
• ▢ 3.5 oz / 100g parmesan cheese , grated (Note 2)
• ▢ 3.3 oz / 95g plain flour

For rosemary flavoured biscuits

• ▢ 1 tbsp rosemary leaves , roughly chopped (or 2 1/2 tsp dried rosemary)

Instructions

Two Ways To Make The Dough

• Process the butter, flour and parmesan in a food processor until a wet crumbly dough; OR
• Alternative method: Place the flour and butter into a bowl and use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour until a crumble dough forms. Then add the parmesan cheese and use your fingers to rub it into the mixture.
• If you are making rosemary biscuits, add the rosemary at the same time as the parmesan cheese.

Make the biscuits

• Lightly flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it. Knead to bring together, then shape into two logs with a diameter of around 3 cm / 1.2" and about 15cm/6" in length.
• Wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. (Note 2)
• Preheat oven to 180°C/350F. Line 1 large baking tray or 2 ordinary baking trays with baking paper (parchment paper).
• Remove the log from the fridge and use a sharp knife to cut the log into 7mm/ 1/3" thick rounds.
• Place the biscuits onto the baking tray at least 2cm / 1" apart.
• Bake biscuits for 12 minutes or until light golden.
• Stand on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Recipe Notes:

1. If you don't use SALTED butter, please add 1/2 tsp salt.

2. To make this super easy, I use store bought grated parmesan cheese. The fresh kind from the refrigerator section (I get mine from Harris Farm Markets), not the fake parmesan in the pasta aisle!

100g/3.5oz parmesan cheese is approximately 3/4 cup BUT it is important to weight it rather than measure it by cup because the weight by volume of grated parmesan cheese varies greatly between brands, freshly grated vs store bought grated.

3. Sometimes, you will end up with a small ridge around the rim of the biscuit. You can see it a bit in the photos but sometimes they are even more prominent. If you want a perfect, evenly golden surface with no ridge, use a flat bottom glass and lightly press on the surface of each biscuit on the baking tray.

4. Adapted from this recipe from Taste.com.au.

5. Nutrition per biscuit assuming 30 biscuits.

Nutrition Information:

Serving: 10gCalories: 46cal (2%)Carbohydrates: 2.5g (1%)Protein: 1.4g (3%)Fat: 3.4g (5%)Saturated Fat: 2.2g (14%)Cholesterol: 10mg (3%)Sodium: 50mg (2%)Potassium: 4mgVitamin A: 100IU (2%)Calcium: 30mg (3%)Iron: 0.2mg (1%)

Did you make this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Tag me on Instagram at @RecipeTinEats.

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