Returning home at about 4pm on a Sunday after a short hike, I started pottering around in the kitchen preparing an early dinner and getting ingredients ready for some cheddar cheese cookie which I had set my mind on making a few days ago.

I love cookies/biscuits. I’m really not sure what the difference is. To me, though, they are the same. These days I generally prefer savoury to sweet cookies; I find alot of commercially available ones too sweet for my liking. So I decided I’d try my hand at baking some with my tiny toaster oven which really, as its name suggests, is meant merely for heating up toast. Sadly, because of space constraints in HK it passes off as an oven for most households here.

Anyway I found a recipe from the BBC Good Food website and followed it for the most part. Except I didn’t have a food processor and just mixed all the ingredients by hand instead. To my flour, butter, cheese, and egg mixture, I also added some cayenne pepper, freshly ground pepper and salt.

Nothing can beat the aroma of butter and cheese baking in an oven. While the lush buttery scents permeate my tiny flat, for a fleeting moment I could imagine myself walking past a Parisian patisserie with its displays of croissants and pain au chocolats baked to golden perfection and begging to be consumed.

I’m then brought back to reality with the “Ding!” coming from my oven and I’m greeted by tiny golden brown slabs that hint of spice and pepper that complement the saltiness of cheddar in the buttery concoction. Not too bad for a first time at this I’d say!