Cheesy watercress stars

Prep time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 10 minutes Makes 20

These tasty little stars are a great way of getting the kids into the kitchen at Christmas time, plus you can arrange them in any way you like to make a beautiful party food display.

Ingredients

320g ready rolled puff pastry

80g grated cheddar

40g watercress, finely chopped

Flour for dusting

 

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.  Unroll the pastry and sprinkle  most of the cheese over one half as well as most of the watercress.  Fold the bare side of the pastry over the cheesy half and press down around the edges to seal in the cheese and watercress.

Lightly flour the work surface and place the pastry on top.  Roll out the pastry to about double the size.  Sprinkle the rolled out pastry with the rest of the cheese and chopped watercress, spreading as evenly as possible.  Try to keep a little bit of cheese and watercress back so that you can re-roll any trim once the stars have been cut out.

Line two baking sheets with grease-proof paper, then take a star shaped cookie cutter and cut the pastry into as many stars as possible.  You could use any shaped cutter you like for this!  Once you have cut out as many as you can, squash the leftover pastry into a ball and then roll out again, sprinkling with a little more cheese and watercress and cutting out the remaining stars.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden on top.  Once removed from the oven the stars can be served immediately or kept in an air tight container for up to three days.