My dad’s birthday was a few weeks ago and in addition to the french burnt peanuts I made for him, I also made some homemade cheez-its.
Cheez-its are his all time favorite snack. I mean who can resist a cheez-it, really? They are the perfect cracker; except that it is completely conceivable for an otherwise sensible and health conscious adult to consume the entire box in one day (or sitting). They even put “get your own box” on the back of the box………they know. Dirty Kellogg.
But with each box having more than 16 ingredients that I can’t pronounce, including the dreaded partially hydrogenated palm oil….and at around 2,000 calories, almost 100 grams of fat and 2800 grams of sodium per box (a serving size is 27 crackers….yeah right….who are they kidding? Have you ever counted out 27 cheez -its? I have and it is a sad, sad little pile.)
I never really considered crackers something I could make myself. And then I made teething biscuits with great success – and they were cracker-ish. Then I saw Melissa’s recipe for graham crackers last year. (I still need to make those.) It was time to try out the cheese its.
So, in my search for recipes I found a few great options. But, many included some sort of cheese powder, but that seemed hard to find and less healthy. (might as well buy a box). So I kept looking.
Martha had a good looking recipe. But in perfect Martha style it had more than 10 (some quite fancy) ingredients. Not simple enough. And then my issue of ReadyMade had a cheese-it taste off and a recipe online. Five simple ingredients. Yeah! Plus it was the winner of the taste off. Getting closer. I found this recipe on the Thin Chef. Perfect.
In the end, however, I chose to use this recipe from “From Away.com”. Mainly because he called Cheez-Its his dark master. And that made me laugh so hard.
Here is his recipe…. (and it is almost identical to the ReadyMade recipe and the Thin Chef recipe – so they must be onto something.)
Homemade Cheez-It Crackers
What you need:
- 1 cup flour
- 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small squares
- 1 (8-ounce) bag grated extra-sharp 2% Cheddar cheese (preferably orange)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
What you do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in food processor, and pulse until crumbly. Add cold water, a tablespoon at a time, until dough comes together. Form into ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. Place dough between two pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper, and roll out to 1/8 inch thickness. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheet, and, using pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut into 1 inch squares. Sprinkle with kosher salt and bake for 25 minutes. Test for crispiness; crackers may take a few minutes more to finish crisping. Remove from oven when crisp and just starting to brown. Let cool and serve.
They are so, so good. And I know what’s in them! 🙂 It took about 1 minute to make the dough. Then you just chill it, roll it out, cut ’em up and bake. YUM! They are so good right out of the oven. I wish I had a cute little pasta cutter to make the edges more cheez-it like. Next time. 🙂
