Recipe: Making Homemade Cheez-Its

Today, my son and I took a break from school and made some Cheez-Its. Now, I've used this recipe before but it's been at least five years ago and I couldn't remember how it turned out. I will also state that this is NOT my recipe. I got this online somewhere and printed it. I can't find the link. So if someone knows where this recipe comes from, please let me know and I'll be more than happy to give credit to that person immediately. 

Homemade Cheez-Its:
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated
3/4 cup flour, plus more for dusting
4 tbsp. butter, softened and cut up
1/2 tsp. salt (or 1 tsp. if you use unsalted butter)
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1 tbsp. whole milk

Preheat the oven to 350'F

In a food processor (or a good blender), combine the cheese, butter, flour, salt and pepper in five-second pulses until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 

Add the milk and process until the dough forms a ball. In my case, I used a blender and I processed it for about 20 seconds and then took it out and kneaded it for a minute or two. It felt just like play-dough and it was good to go at that point. 

On a lightly floured surface using a rolling pin (mine is plastic) roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 1/16" thick. In my case, I eyeballed it and used my pizza slicer to slice the crackers into almost squares. If you want to be precise, you're welcome to use a cookie cutter. I've also read you can use a serrated fondant cutter to make it look more like the original crackers. 

I personally placed the crackers on parchment paper to bake. 

Poke holes in the middle with a toothpick if desired. You can also lightly sprinkle more salt on the top if you want to. 

Bake the crackers on the middle rack for 15 minutes or until the ends are beginning to brown.

Once I pulled the pan from the oven, I immediately removed the crackers from the parchment paper onto a dry surface to cool. If you leave them on the baking sheet to cool, you might want to remove them from the oven just a little earlier as they will darken a bit more as they cool since the cookie sheet is so hot. 

Verdict: The texture of these crackers is fantastic. I find it's a bit too sharp for me personally and next time may go with mild cheddar just to see how it turns out. Our son, who is a huge Cheez-Its fan, seems to think they are a little too sharp as well. We also tend to eat very low salt, and I thought 1 tsp. of salt (we used unsalted butter) was a little too much. I will stick with unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp. salt next time. They are easy to make and the dough is wonderful to work with. I'll definitely be trying this recipe again in the future!

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