RECIPE: Cheddar and Marmite Oatcakes

Having just bought some really special cheeses (more about them at the end of this post)  for a lockdown treat, I realised that we had no special crackers to eat them with. Now I've been meaning to have a go at making oatcakes for several months, and had even bought a bag of fine oatmeal to use, so it seemed like the perfect time to dig it out and give it a try.

I added Cheddar and Marmite for extra "umami" - here is my recipe.

150g fine oatmeal
75g self raising flour
50g very finely grated cheddar cheese
25g butter or margarine
2 teaspoons of Marmite
50ml water

If you are a Marmite hater leave it out and add half a teaspoon of salt instead. Or you could add some dried herbs or smoked paprika for variety.

Mix the oatmeal, flour and cheese together. Place the fat, Marmite and water in a small saucepan and heat gently until melted, then  pour over the flour etc and mix well. The dough will be VERY firm and crumbly.

Cover and chill for half an hour.
Heat the oven to 180C (160 fan), 350F, Gas Mark 4.
Line 2 baking trays with non-stick/greaseproof paper.

Roll the dough out thinly (about 3mm is ideal).  Because it is so dry and brittle, I kept a bowl of water to hand and occasionally sprinkled a few drops off the tips of my fingers on to it, especially when re-rolling the trimmings. Use a plain cutter to cut into circles of your chosen size. I couldn't find my plain cutters so I used one with very tiny fluted edges, which left the edges a bit crumbly but didn't do any harm. (Maybe I should have raised my Spellbinders dies!). My cutter was about 8 cm and I made 14 oatcakes from this amount of dough.

Place on the trays and bake for around 15 minutes until dry and firm. Cool on racks, making sure they are completely cool before storing in an airtight container - any warmth left in them will make them go soft.

These don't keep as well as bought oatcakes; the cheese in them will make them go soft after a few days but ours didn't hang around for long enough for that to be a problem!

Here they are on one of my much loved 1970s Palissy plates with a selection of cheeses. We've LOVED these cheeses, which we ordered from the Bath Soft Cheese Company. They have a cheese board pack of 5 assorted organic cheeses for £25 including delivery - a great selection and beautiful cheeses. Such great cheese served with fresh, delicious oatcakes has certainly brightened up our lockdown eating!

Just before I go, I thought I'd share a snippet of cheese related chat with you. This time last year,  Mark and I needed to go somewhere in Mayfair, London (for those unfamiliar with Britain's capital,  that's a very posh area.) As we were heading back to the tube station to come home, we passed a cheese shop and being total cheese monsters, just HAD to go in. The sights and smells were too good to resist, so we decided to treat ourselves to a tiny slice of an ultra strong blue cheese to enjoy when we got home. Foolishly, we didn't ask the price of it before it was cut. That tiny sliver of cheese, less than 70g and no more than a couple of mouthfuls each, cost us a whopping great £14.95! Mind you the smell was so strong it guaranteed we were given plenty of space on the train home.