General Comments:

Do you like goldfish crackers? Cheez-its? How about making them at home? Yep, that’s right, homemade goldfish/cheez-its. I thought I’d try my hand at something savory, but also wanted something simple and quick because I was baking on a weeknight as I was going to be out of town on the weekend. That’s where these came in. Additionally, these crackers gave me the opportunity to use 3 new pieces of equipment: a food processor, a rolling pin, and a pastry scraper. On that note, my skills with a rolling pin could use some serious work. That aside... let’s talk food.

So I came across a recipe for cheddar crackers during the beginning of my descent in baking obsession and I tucked it away until I had the right equipment and the motivation. They looked simple to make and yet simultaneously something I could find myself eating and enjoying. However, the original recipe sounded a touch to boring for my taste, so I decided to make two batches -- one in which I just following the recipe, and one in which I got a little creative. The secret ingredient for the creative ones? Cholula. Bam. I wanted one of the batches to have something a little exciting going on, so I subbed out some of the water for cholula and added some cayenne pepper (I’ll be posting both versions below, the cholula ones are in the above picture). In the end, I much prefer the cholula ones because they’re more interesting, but the straight cheddar ones did taste freakishly similar to store bought cheddar crackers. In the future, I think I might use a stronger cheddar as I felt the cheese flavor could have been a bit more powerful.

One final comment is that I would have like the crackers to be crunchier, but on the other hand some people like the light fluffiness of them. In an attempt to step up the crunch factor in the plain cheddar ones, I broiled them all for a VERY SHORT amount of time (1-3 minutes). This did darken up the tops a bit and added some crunch, but not as much as I had hoped for. Also... got distracted briefly with the broiling for a fraction of them and they got a little on the burnt side (left side of the image below). Interestingly enough, the slightly burnt ones tasted more like cheez-its than goldfish...



Baker’s Notes:

1) The most time consuming part of this recipe was cutting the dough into cracker-sized pieces (which is why they then from triangles to squares -- less cuts). I was using my pastry scraper to cut them, but I think in the future I might use a pizza wheel to save time.

2) The original recipe suggested that the dough be rolled to 1/8 of an inch thick, but I think even thinner is better. Thicker pieces will tend to puff up quite a bit, so if you want really fluffy ones, leave it thick. I found that even when rolled to 1/16 of an inch, I got plenty of puff. You’ll also notice that in the plain cheddar batch, there are small dots in the center (reminiscent of real cheez-its). I used a chopstick to poke those dots in each cracker. This actually limited how much they puffed up and ultimate I thought led to better crackers -- both visually and crunch wise.

3) Unfortunately, the crunch seems to fade with time, even when stored in an airtight container -- I haven’t come up with a good remedy for this yet.

Recipe:

Cholula Cheddar Cracker Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cayenne pepper
4 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 oz. grated cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. Cholula hot sauce
1-2 Tbsp. water

Plain Cheddar Cracker Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 oz. grated cheddar cheese
3-4 Tbsp. water

Directions

• In a food processor: Pulse the flour, salt and pepper, then add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add grated cheese a little at a time until the mixture again resembles coarse meal.
• Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough forms into a ball. It will probably take a minute or so. (for the cholula crackers, added the 2 tablespoons of cholula first, then add 1-2 tablespoons of water)
• Remove, wrap in plastic, and chill for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours. I let one batch chill for ~90 minutes and the other overnight. By doing this, the butter has time to solidify and may make for puffier crackers. Keep in mind that you’ll likely have to let the dough warm up a bit before you can roll it, if you let it sit in the fridge over night.
• Roll the dough out to 1/16th to 1/8th-inch thickness.
• Using a knife, pastry scraper, or pizza wheel, cut 1 inch squares (or whatever shape suits you)
• Bake at 350° F for 15-20 minutes or until crackers are golden brown. Watch them after the 10 minute mark.
• Optional: If you want to try to brown the tops of the crackers more and potentially get them a bit crispier, broil them for 1-3 minutes, but watch them like a hawk.

Credit: Modified from this recipe.

Tags: cheddar, cholula, crackers, rolling pin, pastry scraper, food processor, recipe