Stilton and walnut nibbles
– from Miranda Gore Browne’s book ‘Biscuit’ (Ebury, 2012)
These savoury biscuits were baked for a wine and cheese evening in the church for the launch of The Friends of Ipsden Church (see below). The recipe comes from Miranda Gore Browne’s book Biscuit (Ebury Press, 2012).
Ingredients
200g plain flour, sifted
a good half tsp mustard powder
pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper
100 g mature Cheddar or Parmesan roughly grated
100 g Stilton cheese roughly grated
200 g unsalted butter straight from the fridge
100g walnuts
Line 4 baking trays with baking parchment (or you could bake them in 2 batches).
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/ 160 degrees C for a fan oven/Gas Mark 4
Makes about 60
Stilton and walnut nibbles
– from Miranda Gore Browne’s book ‘Biscuit’ (Ebury, 2012)
Put the dry ingredients (flour, mustard powder, salt, pepper) into a bowl together with the cheeses (keeping about 25 g of one or both of the cheeses to one side for later). Grate the butter into this and add all but 1 tblsp of the walnuts. Rub the butter into the mixture with your fingers (or pulse in a food processor) until it forms a dough.
Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface and roll into 4 logs of about 3 cm diameter. Wrap each log in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour (or for about 20 minutes in the freezer).
Cut the chilled dough into discs about 5 mm thick and place these on the baking trays and sprinkle with the cheese and walnuts set aside earlier.
Bake for 10 minutes or until biscuits are turning pleasantly golden. Transfer immediately to a wire rack to cool, although they are delicious warm.
These keep well in an air tight container. The dough also freezes well.
Stilton and walnut nibbles – from Miranda Gore Browne’s book ‘Biscuit’ (Ebury, 2012)
Friends of Ipsden Church was formed for 2 main reasons and, let’s not be shy about it, one of those reasons is financial. The parish share comes from money covenanted as well as that given in Sunday collections during the service. This goes towards local and national church administration, clergy stipends, clergy houses and pensions. But an ancient building and its furnishings require upkeep and these must be paid for in other ways. We are fortunate at Ipsden that the church, though dating back to the C12th is basically a sound building and at the moment requires minimal attention. It would be rather nice, though not really necessary, to paint the ceilings (many of us would love to see that above the choir painted blue) and if we wanted to do this, we could only go ahead if we raised the necessary money. The Friends of Ipsden, should it be agreed, could go ahead and raise money for this. Already the Friends have put on 2 very successful markets in Ipsden Barn (incredibly beautiful and possibly the longest continuous barn in England with 24 bays and 5 entrance porches).
The second reason for forming the Friends is to open the church up to a wider community, including to people who have no interest in coming to church for the services and to those who feel a connection with the church because family lie buried in the churchyard or because they just like a building with a bit of history. And the visitor book shows that people come from all over the world and for all sorts of not always apparent reasons. Concerts, exhibitions, talks and plays already take place regularly in the church and up until now these have been down to a few motivated individuals. The Friends may add similar things to the church’s calendar or they may decide to do something different, like researching and mapping out the graves in the churchyard (ideal in summer with a picnic thrown in). There’s no fixed agenda. It is all very exciting. But if Saturday is anything to go by when the food and wine were excellent and the organisation ran on smooth and friendly wheels, the village and church will be very well served.
