The least-fussy thing rough puff can become. No filling, no shaping, no piping – just a sheet of pastry, a generous shower of cheese, a fold, another roll, a twist, and a hot oven. Eats well with crisp sliced apple: the salty fat in the pastry and the sweetness in the fruit balance each other out, and a snack becomes a small ceremony.
Ingredients (about 20 twists)
- 300g rough puff pastry, rested overnight in the fridge – half a batch
- 80g hard cheese, finely grated – parmesan is the default; a 50/50 mix with mature cheddar gives more depth
- 1 large egg, beaten with a teaspoon of water
- A generous pinch of smoked paprika or cayenne (optional)
- Flaky sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
You’ll need a rolling pin, a sharp knife or pizza wheel, a baking tray, and a sheet of baking parchment.
The method
Heat the oven to 200°C fan.
Roll the rough puff on a lightly floured bench to a rectangle about 3mm thick and roughly 30cm by 25cm. Brush the surface lightly with the egg wash. Scatter the grated cheese evenly across one half of the rectangle (the long way), with a pinch of paprika if you’re using it and a turn of black pepper. Fold the un-cheesed half over the cheesed half and roll the whole thing gently again – just enough to press the cheese into the dough – back to about 3mm and 30cm by 25cm.
Brush the top lightly with more egg wash, scatter a thinner layer of cheese, and crack pepper over.
Cut the rectangle into strips about 1.5cm wide and 25cm long with the knife or pizza wheel. Lift each strip and twist it three or four times along its length, pinching the ends to hold the twist, and lay it on the parchment-lined tray. Space them generously – they puff sideways as they bake, and twists that touch each other fuse along the seam.
Bake for 14 to 16 minutes until deep gold and crisp through. A pale twist is a soft twist; push them to the colour your oven gives. Sprinkle with flaky salt the moment they come out.
Eat warm, or within a few hours. They stay crisp in an airtight tin for two days but soften after that.
Variants
- Cheese and seed: scatter sesame, poppy, or nigella seeds with the cheese before folding.
- Anchovy: a fine dice of anchovy or a thin scrape of anchovy paste across the dough before the cheese – vanishes into umami in the bake.
- Sweet twists: skip the cheese, brush with melted butter and cinnamon sugar, fold, roll, twist. Palmier-adjacent but rougher.
Where the twists go
- Straight on the table with sliced apple and a drink – the canonical afternoon use
- Alongside a bowl of soup as a savoury crouton
- Broken into a salad of leaves, walnut, and pear for crunch
- Pre-dinner snack with olives, cured meat, a sharp cheese