Like any normal red-blooded ‘Murrikan, I love Cheez-Its. Recently, my roommate started the Paleo diet and I scored nearly a full box of these cheesy wonders. I thought it would be a wise idea to store them at my desk for those times in the day when I need a little snack. BIG MISTAKE.
When I opened the box between morning snack time and lunch, I thought “oh, I’ll just have a couple.” A couple turned into one handful, which turned into another and another and another before I put the box in my desk where it would be too much trouble to reach in for just a few more. Then came afternoon snack time, the appropriate time for Cheez-Its. I could not control myself and ended up eating about half of what was left. By the time the end of the day rolled around, there was only about a quarter of the box left. “Good,” I thought. Just enough for a snack on Monday and I will never bring the entire box of Cheez-Its to work again.I posted of my gluttony on Facebook and a friend reminded me of the recipe she sent me for homemade Cheez-Its. I felt adventurous this week and decided to make them again using this recipe.
The ingredients are simple: shredded cheddar cheese, flour, butter, cheese, salt and water. I decided to get fancy this time and use some expensive cheese. I suppose you can buy the already shredded cheese, but I like to buy the block cheese and shred it myself.
In case you don’t want to click the link, the process goes something like this. Shred the cheese. add that, the butter and salt to a standing mixer. Mix until it’s crumbly. Then add the flour until everything comes together. Then add the water. It’s not a lot of water, so just add enough to make it doughy. I use what the recipe calls for. Once the dough has come together, roll it into two separate discs, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. I was lazy this week and let it sit overnight. I would not advise this. Or if you do, let the dough get back to room temperature as this will make it easier to roll out.
The recipe says to roll out the discs until they are one-eighth inch thick. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I mean, maybe you do, but I am impatient and rolling dough until it’s so thin is not my thing. You’re also supposed to roll it out on parchment paper, but that’s a pain in the ass as the paper does not stay still for me. I roll it out on the counter. Just make sure it’s clean and maybe put some flour down so the dough doesn’t stick. Once it’s rolled out to whatever thickness you want, cut it into squares. I just use a pizza cutter because that’s what I have. It doesn’t give you the cute crinkle edges that the store-bought Cheez-Its do, but it’s not like the shape affects the taste.
You should have the oven pre-heated to 375º at this point. Place the squares on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, poke a hole in the squares and throw some salt on them – just like the real thing. Bake ‘em for 12 minutes and boom! homemade Cheez-Its.
Was this recipe easy? Yes. it only required 5 ingredients and the only thing I needed to buy was the cheese.
How long did it take? Total, including the baking probably close to three hours starting from when I shred the cheese to when I took the last batch of squares out of the oven.
How did they taste? I messed up a bit and added one teaspoon of salt instead of the half teaspoon the recipe calls for. I couldn’t really tell until the last batch. This is probably because I didn’t ever change the parchment paper and the last squares had excess salt on the bottom from the first batch. The recipe says they stay fresh for a couple weeks in an air tight container, but I don’t agree with this. These are best when they are warm. I stored them in a Tupperware and even the next day they were a bit stale.
Would I make this again? This is actually the second time I’ve made this recipe and I think I forgot the part where the squares got stale pretty quickly. I don’t think I’ll make these again.
Photo 1 via flickr. Photos 2 and 3 courtesy clarity83.
