These are my favourite Spanish biscuits – the taste of my childhood. Tortas de aceite originated in Andalucia. Local nuns call them tortas del virgin. This is a healthy snack with 0% cholesterol. Tortas are crispy and not too sweet, with a fabulous fennel taste. You can change the recipe to make savoury biscuits – just remove sugar and sprinkle biscuits with coarse sea salt.

I had always been convinced that it’s very difficult to make them at home but the opposite turned out to be true. Making them is easy and quick. All you need is flour and olive oil. All these ingredients are always on hand. The main trick – you have to roll them very very thin.

You need

• Wooden dough roller;

Ingredients

• 300g “00” flour (plus extra for the work surface)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 100ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 150ml warm water
• 3 tbsp sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)
• 2 tsp dry yeast
• 1 egg beaten (for brushing)

Step by step

• Mix the flour, salt and fennel seeds in a bowl.
• Mix well the extra virgin olive oil and the warm water. Add the golden caster sugar and yeast , mix well.
• Slowly pour in the liquid mixture in the flour and knead well unlit your dough is smooth.
• Preheat the oven to 230°c.
• Divide your dough into equal-sized pieces (depends how large you want each biscuit to be). I usually make around 30 biscuits. Roll each piece into a ball and then roll them into very very thin round biscuits.
• Put them on your baking trays and brush each one with some beaten egg. Scatter over a little golden caster sugar.
• Cook for around 10 minutes or until dark golden.

  Your shopping basket

• 1kg “00” flour – £1.10
• 100g fennel seeds – £0.99
• 500ml extra-virgin olive oil – £3.50
• 6 eggs – £1.30
• Total basket £6.89 | Cost of ingredients (30 biscuits) £2.85 | Per serving £0.10