Cheese Stars - cooking recipe

Ingredients

150 g plain flour
50 g cold butter, cubed
85 g cheddar cheese, finely grated (or a mixture of several cheeses, Parmesan is a good addition)
1 beef stock cube, crumbled
1 egg, seperated
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon dried herbs (rosemary or oregano are good, in my experience)
1 pinch salt
and a pinch of any other spices or herbs, you want to add

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, or 180C fan assisted. Grease and flour two large baking trays.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, herbs and spices. Crumble in the stock cube and stir well until evenly distributed.
3. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Stir in the cheese until well distributed (I find using two forks to pull apart the clumps of grated cheese is a good method).
5. Mix in the egg yolk with your fingers, working the mixture to a dense dough. You may need to add a splash or two of water to achieve the correct consistency - the mixture should not be sticky, but should not leave crumbs in the bowl.
6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of around 5mm - this isn't too vital, but will affect cooking times.
7. With a star-shaped cutter, stamp out as many shapes as you can from the dough and place, slightly spaced, on the baking sheets. Re-roll the dough and repeat until you have too little left to work with.
8. Brush each star with a little egg white and bake in the preheated oven for around ten minutes until golden.
9. Remove and cool on wire trays.