HOMEMADE CHEDDAR CRACKERS

Our youngest has had the same "favorite snack" since she was able to eat solid food. Goldfish is a staple in our house. We never travel without a stash. Even though they are better than other fried or sugary snacks, there still is a concern with processed food choices.

So, when we came across this recipe to make her favorite snack by hand, we jumped at the chance. The recipe is pretty simple, the main challenge is getting the consistency correct, like you have to do with pie dough but way more forgiving. 

The recipe, found on Food 4 Tots, is below:

Homemade Cheddar Crackers

Makes 5 cups (depending on the size of your crackers.)

Ingredients

8 oz cheddar, grated

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold & cut into cubes

½ whole wheat flour

½ all purpose flour

2 tablespoons ice water

½ teaspoon salt

Directions

In a food processor fitted with the dough-making blade, pulse the whole wheat and all purpose flour and cold butter cubes together until it resembles coarse sand.

Add the salt to the mixture and pulse a few more times. You want to still be able to see some tiny pearls of butter.

Add in the shredded cheddar cheese and pulse until it starts to look like coarse sand again. 

Add one tablespoon of ice-cold water and pulse a few times and then add the last tablespoon of water. The dough should hold together well at this point. If not, add in a teaspoon of ice-cold water at a time and pulse after each addition, until it holds. 

**If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a pastry blender and cut the butter into the flour mixture, just like you are making pie dough or biscuits.  Add the salt and the cheddar cheese and cut it into the mixture until it starts to look like coarse sand again. Add one tablespoon of water at a time until the dough holds together.

Divide the dough into two balls and wrap in plastic then let it chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Working with one ball of dough at a time, roll it out between two sheets of parchment paper. Trust us on this part! It saves you so much time and clean up in the end.

We rolled the dough out to about 1/8 inch and cut the crackers out with a 1 inch fish-shaped cutter that we made ourselves from an aluminum can. (If you decide to make your own cutter like we did, do this part without the kids and be very careful.) Here is a step by step tutorial on how to do it. It was super easy!

Bake in a 325° oven for 18 minutes on a baking sheet covered with parchment. Once they are done baking, let them cool so they get crispy!

We love this recipe and are having fun thinking of all the ways to change it up! You can make these a bit more “adult” by substituting Parmesan for the Cheddar and adding a couple tablespoons of fresh chopped Rosemary. Yum!