Cheesy Marmite stars

My maiden name before I married was 'Baker', and so to live up to family tradition, I like to create a new recipe once in a while, usually a dessert of some kind, but today's offering is a doggy treat! 

'Cheesy Marmite stars' are made with potato flour, making these tasty, crunchy biscuits a nutritious treat for gluten-intolerant dogs, and suitable for dogs whose owners choose to feed them a cereal/grain-free diet.  You can buy potato flour from health food stores (e.g. Holland & Barrett).      

Ingredients (makes about 120-140 biscuits):

250g potato flour

50mls cold water

2 generous teaspoons of Marmite

50g finely grated mature Cheddar cheese

1 large free range egg

Method:
 
Preheat over to175C and line a large baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment.  Mix together flour and grated cheese in a large bowl.  In a jug, beat together water, Marmite and egg.  Add Marmite mixture to the cheese/flour and mix to a stiff dough.  You may need to add a little more water.  If you have never used potato flour before, if you add too much water the dough will resemble silly putty and be too runny to roll out, so add any extra water a tiny bit at a time.  If you do end up with silly putty, add a little more flour.  Once your dough is at handling consistency (it may be a bit sticky, but this is okay), place onto a floured board and roll out to around ¼ - ½ cm thick.  Using a small (3 – 4 cm wide) star-shaped biscuit cutter, cut out one star at a time, placing each on the baking tray before cutting the next.  The reason for this is that potato flour dough doesn’t hold its moisture very well, and if you cut and leave each biscuit in-situ with the intention to place them all on the tray once you’ve finished cutting, they will have stuck to the board (trust me, I’ve made this mistake!)  Bake near the top of the oven for 30 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack.  Once cooled, store in an airtight container. 

And don’t just save them for the dogs – if you're a Marmite lover like me, they make a tasty savoury snack for humans too!