Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs

Although I'm already a month into my 3rd trimester and I really shouldn't be tinkering in the kitchen, but I just can't help it! My brain wouldn't stop thinking about food, no matter making or eating (or making so I can eat them). This is one of those that I couldn't get out of my mind for days, so I told myself, this will be the last time... again. 😅 The lies I keep telling myself. 

These Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs are the perfect morsels of buttery, garlicky goodness, each bursting with melty cheese! Awesome as appetisers, snacks or like me, eat a lot more as a light meal. If you already love having cheese on garlic bread, you will love these cheese-filled, tender, garlic butter biscuits even more! A must-try recipe for you!

Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs (makes 24 bite-sized snacks)

240g     Plain flour
  15g     Sugar
    5g     Garlic powder
    5g     Dried Italian herbs
    2g     Salt
    1g     Pepper
  10g     Baking powder

  80g     Butter, cold, unsalted
175g     Buttermilk, cold (adjust more or less accordingly)

240g     Mozzarella cheese, cut into 24pcs

To brush on
  50g     Butter, melted, unsalted
  10g     Garlic, minced
    5g     Parsley, chopped
    1g     Salt

Preheat oven to 200°C
1. Mix evenly the flour, sugar, garlic powder, Italian herbs, baking powder and salt. Add in the butter, then using a knife/fork/pastry cutter to cut it through the flour mixture till it resembles breadcrumbs.

2. With a fork or spatula, slowly stir in the buttermilk, bit by bit, and mix till the dough just comes together. You may require more or less than the stated amount. Then briefly knead the dough with your hand (just under 10 kneads) till it no longer sticks to the side of the bowl . Cling wrap and rest dough in fridge for at least 20 mins.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough out to a rectangular shape, approximately 5 mm thick and cut the dough into 24 pieces.

4. Wrap a piece of mozzarella cheese in each piece of dough, making sure that all the edges are sealed well. Roll them into a ball before placing on a lined baking sheet. 

5. Melt butter in microwave and add to the minced garlic, chopped parsley and salt. Gently brush on the garlic butter mixture onto the cheese bombs. Bake 15-17 mins till golden brown.

6. Remove the cheese bombs from the oven, let cool slightly and serve immediately.

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Thoughts: Unlike my recent recipe shares, these Garlic Herb Cheese Bombs do require some time to make. But even at my current snail-slow speed and pregger's brain, frequently scrambling around for ingredients, I did manage to finish under 2 hours with a 30 mins rest time. It should be much faster for you guys. However, if you have access to ready-to-use biscuit dough, it should dramatically shorten the required time to roughly an hour. It will not taste the same though, without the garlic powder and dried herbs in the dough, but it will be easy and fuss-free.

I still prefer to make the dough from scratch and if you want to save some time, I highly recommend doing this. Blitz the flour mixture and cold butter using a food processor instead of doing it manually. Not only will it be easier and quicker, the butter also gets cut up more finely, gets mixed more evenly and remains cold. These factors will contribute to a tender bake. Seriously, I would have used a food processor if not for the fact that I hate washing them. 😝

As for the buttermilk, I would advise not adding all at once. I started with 150g and drizzle in 1 teaspoonful each time till it reaches the consistency I'm after. In the end, I used 165g for this particular bake. If the dough becomes too wet and tacky; more flour has to be added just so it can be handled properly, the resulting bake will be tough with tight crumbs. It's one lesson I learned the hard way through my past failures.

There are 2 minor changes I would make for the next bake though. I might increase the amount of salt in the dough, swap Mozzarella for Cheddar or grate some Parmesan on top of the bombs before baking. While I find the bombs a little under-seasoned, the rest of the family thinks it's all good. I don't know, it could be me tasting differently due to hormonal change but I would still like to try those changes. The other thing would be to separate the chopped parsley in the garlic butter mixture and have them sprinkled on only towards the end of the baking time. Applying them from the start dries out the fresh parsley too much, making them lose its fragrance and colour. Not really a big deal, I just thought they look pretty awful on the photos so I can improve them the next time or rather, *ahem* have excuses to make more! 

But one thing for sure is that calling these "cheese bombs" are not at all exaggerating. Just look at that cheese go!

Try these cheessssey bombs, with or without my proposed changes, and share with us your yummy creations and thoughts on facebook or tag @whattobaketoday on instagram!

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