Parmesan Biscuits

Parmesan Shortbread Biscuit - Butter, flour and Parmesan (rosemary optional) is all you need to make these perfectly buttery, crumbly shortbread biscuits.

INGREDIENTS
4 oz / 100g / 1 stick salted butter, chopped (Note 1)
3.5 oz / 100g Parmesan cheese, grated (Note 2)
¾ cup plain flour
For rosemary flavored biscuits
1 tbsp rosemary leaves, roughly chopped (or 2½ 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
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/ ⅓" 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.

NOTES
1. A US stick of butter = 4 oz = 113 grams. However, I've made this using 113g of butter and 100g of butter and noticed no difference at all. I also tested this using US cups as well as AUS and also noticed no difference.

If you don't use SALTED butter, please add ½ 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 ¾ 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