I’m so excited about this particular recipe because ANYONE can make this. There are so few ingredients and so few skills involved that my kids basically made it all. This means you can too. I’ve been asked a lot lately for “easier meals” or “fast recipes” which is kind of discouraging to me because I feel like I have posted recipes that are both of those things. But, in an attempt to meet half-way with people who want to start cooking, having never cooked much in the past, I offer you this recipe with love.
So, I had seen recipes before but saw a great look one on Pinterest here. This recipe had the perfect cheese-it (or cheez-it) flavor if not better, some of my taste testers said.
Cheese-its
(adapted from “Ready Made” and a few other sources)
8 oz extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely shredded
½ stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 c flour
2 T water, iced
This recipe has so few ingredients I put them in bowls so my kids could mix them lickety-splickety.
Kids are great at measuring. Practice makes them understand fractions visibly instead of just in theory. Makes sense, right?
Yet another awesome kid skill…grating. When they are little, I think they believe it’s a magic trick and constantly check underneath to see if the trick is working.
Measure the cheese to get 8 oz, if it wasn’t already measured as an 8 oz. block.
Pre-measuring the ingredients helps to maintain the kids attention during cooking.
Cream the cheese, butter, and salt until combined. Add the flour until it looks like the above. Then, slowly add the water until the dough forms a ball. It may take 15 seconds or so for the dough to make the ball after you add the water so be careful not to add much more (I added a T. more).
Pat the dough in a disk and put in the fridge for an hour. Then, roll out the dough until it’s 1/8 of an inch.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Cut them in 1″ squares. You can see by the lines that i let my kids help cut them out. They LOVED the pastry wheel.
I put the better looking ones on this tray and saved the weird ones for the next tray. Poke a hole in them with a chopstick and bake for
12 minutes.
Immediately test your product to make sure they are safe to feed other people, but be sure to actually share them.
Keep up with me and my crazy projects and recipes here:
or sign up with e-mails here:
yum – great idea!
this looks so good i’m dying
Yummy! they look so good! :) Can’t wait to give it a try! :)
[...] Homemade Cheez-Its (A Golden Afternoon) Gimme gimme gimme! I love Cheez-Its (and Cheetos, for that matter), and am totally stoked about making them at home thanks to this recipe. [...]
An oldie but a goodie! I didn’t ever think to make cheese it’s, there one of my favorites. Thanks for sharing, I need to make these!
These look de-lish! I’m kind of addicted to Cheese-its and these caught my eye right away :)
[...] Adapted from A Golden Afternoon [...]
[...] …spending too much time on FoodGawker looking at delectable treats such as this. [...]
[...] Cheese crackers, Graham crackers [...]
We made these last night – they are sooo yummy! Thank you for the recipe!
We have been moving away from processed foods, but we could never give up our Cheese-its until now! There is no school tomorrow, so this will be on our to do list! Thanks!
PS: Is there a print link somewhere?
I should probably make one of those at some point…I keep making more food instead :)
I did some C&P work into a Word document so I could print it off. Here it is if anyone else wants to just C&P it. Heading to the kitchen with my 7 year old now!!
Cheese-its
(adapted from “Ready Made” and a few other sources)
8 oz extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely shredded
½ stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 c flour
2 T water, iced
Cream the cheese, butter, and salt until combined. Add the flour until it looks like the above. Then, slowly add the water until the dough forms a ball. It may take 15 seconds or so for the dough to make the ball after you add the water so be careful not to add much more (I added a T. more).
Pat the dough in a disk and put in the fridge for an hour. Then, roll out the dough until it’s 1/8 of an inch.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Cut them in 1″ squares. You can see by the lines that i let my kids help cut them out. They LOVED the pastry wheel.
I put the better looking ones on this tray and saved the weird ones for the next tray. Poke a hole in them with a chopstick and bake for
12 minutes.
haha. Thanks, Jenni!