Crusty Cheese and Mustard Damperettes

Mrs B's Note:

Damper is a traditional hard crusted Australian bread. This recipe makes 14 individual mini Dampers, or Damperettes. The recipe comes from the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook “Muffins, Scones and Breads”. Recipe posted for Zaar World Tour 2005. NOTE: Australian chefs use a larger tablespoon measure so they will only need 2 tbsps of ready-made seeded or grainy mustard.

• Total Time: 35 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 14 Dampere ...

• 600 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 4.92 ml dry mustard
• 30 g butter (plus extra for greasing)
• 500 ml milk (approximately)

TOPPING

• 30 g butter
• 36.97 ml ready-made grainy mustard
• 2.46 ml cayenne pepper
• 120 g fresh parmesan cheese, coarsely grated

Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 450F / 220C /gas mark 6.
2. Sift flour and mustard powder into a large bowl and rub in the butter.
3. Stir in enough milk to mix to a soft, sticky dough.
4. Turn dough onto a floured surface, knead until smooth.
5. Press dough out to about 1.5cm thickness; cut into 7cm rounds.
6. Place rounds onto greased baking trays, positioning them so that they are just touching.
7. Make the topping by melting the butter in a small pan, then remove from heat and stir in remaining topping ingredients; spread topping over the Damperettes.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Reviews

[Kumquat the Cat's friend]

These were very tasty! Light in texture too, which surprised me given descriptions of other damper breads on Zaar. I am an inexperienced baker, and have at least once messed up on flour conversion from metric to U.S. (also on one of Caroline's recipes, sorry) but I was determined not to do it this time. So what I did was check another recipe that recommended 2 1/2 cups flour to 1 cup milk. I measured first, then sifted and added 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 cups milk to get a damp (and slightly messy) dough. I kneaded with lots of flour, and ended up with 6 damperettes. Cooked for 20 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit (had to compete with another recipe in oven) and they came out perfect. Halved the butter in dough and topping, but kept mustard levels as posted. We each ate 1 damperette for dinner (would have had more if I thought I could afford the calories) and am looking forward to breakfast for the next couple days! Thanks very much Caroline.