A great twist – instead of eating off the spoon, we now eat the whole spoon! Perfectly served as a canapé or after-meal snack.
Crackerbread spoons with watermelon preserve, gorgonzola and balsamic caviar
Ingredients
CRACKERBREAD SPOONS
- 150g cake flour + extra, to dust
- 5ml (1 tsp) salt flakes
- 45ml (3 tbsp) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
- 60g Gruyère, grated
- 60ml (4 tbsp) milk, chilled
TO SERVE
- Gorgonzola, cut into small cubes
- ready-made watermelon/fig preserve, cut into small cubes
- store-bought balsamic caviar (available at La Marina Foods) (optional)
- microherbs, to garnish
Instructions
For the crackerbread spoons, place the cake flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the chilled butter cubes and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. If a food processor is not available, use a bowl and your fingers to rub the butter into the flour. Pulse in the cheese at this point with a few short bursts.
While the processor is running, add the milk until the dough comes together into a very loose ball. Transfer the dough to a sealable plastic bag and chill in the fridge, 1 hour. At this point, preheat the oven to 120˚C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Unwrap the chilled dough and place it on a flour-dusted work surface. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 1cm. Use a spoon-shaped cookie cutter or a knife to trace and cut the dough out around a teaspoon.
Gently lift the shaped pastry spoons using a spatula and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Gather and bring together the leftover pastry, and roll out again to cut out more spoon shapes – therefore, not wasting the dough.
Bake in the preheated oven, 45 minutes, rotating the baking sheet midway, after 25 minutes. This helps the pastry cook evenly.
Remove from oven and allow the crackerbread spoons to cool on the baking sheet before lifting them out onto a wire cooling rack.
To serve, layer cubes of Gorgonzola and watermelon or fig preserve on the spoon, dollop with a little store-bought balsamic caviar, if desired, and garnish with microherbs.
Notes
Chill the milk and butter in the fridge before using them in this recipe – this aids in combining the dough more easily and lends texture to the crackerbread spoons. The “rubbing in” method, in which flour is rubbed into a fat, can be done very quickly in a food processor using the pulse button. It is also useful for making a crumble topping.
Imka Webb is a freelance digital marketing expert and the digital editor of Food & Home Entertaining magazine. www.imkawebb.com
