‘Easy as’ cheese biscuits

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency. Add the cheese and stir with a wooden spoon. Make a well in the centre of the dry mixture, crack the egg into it and mix well until you have a very sticky, doughy mess.
2. Flour your work surface well and spoon the dough onto it. Cover the sticky dough with lots more flour – for once this isn’t a recipe where you have to urge children to be conservative with flour dredging. Flatten with your palm until about 5 mm thick, then cut out shapes with cutters that have been dipped in flour and pop onto the baking sheet. This dough happily re-rolls so squidge together any leftovers and pat down again.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes until they look a bit bubbly. Remove from the oven and let sit on the tray for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Eat in front of children’s TV with a beaker of juice or, possibly even better, after 7pm with a hunk of cheese, a few olives and a vat of red wine.
4. These biscuits, coming from a wet dough, go stale quickly – so eat on the day of baking or re-crisp in the oven the day after.