Homemade Cheese-Its

  

It's probably no surprise that I often show my affection for people by making them food.  So after my husband had a long month of training, I wanted to make him something to celebrate him finishing the rotation.  He's more of a salty snack kind of person and when he was little, he used to like cheez-its.  So when I found a recipe for homemade cheese-its, I knew I wanted to try it.  Because nothing says I love you like...crackers?

These ended up being a pretty easy recipe to make.  It doesn't hurt that there are only 5 ingredients (two of which are salt and water) and the food processor does most of the work for you.  You just pulse all the ingredients together in a food processor for a few seconds (I probably did 5-7 one-second pulses) and then add in a little water to form a dough.  You let the dough rest and then the hardest part (which wasn't bad) was rolling out the dough into a nice, thin layer.  I thought that the thinner crackers tasted better because they crisped up nicely so next time, I'd probably try a little harder to get most of the crackers on the thinner side.

Even though I didn't have the full amount of cheddar cheese, they still tasted very similiar to the store bought cheese-its but just much more real.(Well, according to my husband, anyway. I can't say I've had too many cheez-its in my life...which I'm okay with.)


Homemade Cheese-Its
Taken from: Rachel Cooks

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 7 ounces sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (I actually only used about 5-6 ounces of cheese since that was all I had and they still turned out wonderfully.  Also, since the food processor was going to get dirty anyway, I used it to shred the block of cheddar cheese.)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard (optional, I omitted)
• 2-3 tablespoons cold water
• sea salt or kosher salt for sprinkling, if desired

1. In a food processor, pulse everything except water together until it looks like course crumbs.
2. While pulsing, add in water, 1 tablespoon at a time (you may not need all 3 tablespoons or you may even need a tablespoon or so more; mine took 3 tablespoons of water to come together into a dough).
3. Remove from food processor, wrap in plastic wrap and put in refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper.
5. Roll out dough (quite thin–I think the crackers that were thinner were a better).  Cut into squares using a knife or a pizza cutter. Use a toothpick, the end of a skewer or the end of scissors to poke a hole in the middle of each cracker.
6. Place crackers on lined baking sheet. Lighly sprinkle with salt, if desired.You can place them fairly close together, as they do not really expand. Bake for 13-20 minutes or until crispy (I started checking mine every few minutes after the first 10 minutes of baking and probably baked close to the full 20 minutes).