Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Cheese crackers

That's what I'm trying right now. Rough recipe:

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, grated (sorry, I didn't measure, I just grated into the mixing bowl until there was the amount of butter I wanted ;)
1/2 cup (more or less) grated mild chedder cheese or some other mild cheese or cheese mix (I had some "mexican mix" in the 'fridge from making burritos which was pretty smooth)

Mix ingredients (flour, butter, cheese first, then milk until the dough is the right consistency to hold together as a ball but not be sticky), slap it on some floured wax paper and flour the top slightly to help keep it from sticking, slap another piece of wax paper on top, roll it out into a fairly thin sheet. Fold/cut/relocate edges until rectangular. Use pizza cutter to cut the result into crackers. Put on lightly floured cookie sheet, sprinkle top with more grated cheese to give it a nice texture on the top, bake at 350 degrees for around 20+ minutes until golden brown.

We'll have to see how it tastes, but it certainly *smells* good ;).

-- Badtux the Cooking Penguin

Update: 24 minutes after putting them into the oven, they're cooked, but the texture is wrong. The texture is sort of like a very good pie crust. A *cheesy* pie crust, and a *good* pie crust, but definitely not crispy. Maybe I need to let them cook a little longer... okay, slid back in...

Update #2: 30 minutes they had to come out or become overcooked. Letting them cool but the one I tried again has the consistency of a very good pie crust.

Update #3: I think I know where I went wrong. After I rolled it out the dough needed to rest in the refrigerator for a while to let the gluten relax, it's holding on too tight. I was just impatient.

It appears that this attempt to make crackers failed, though the results are still delicious (as in, most of them are gone within 20 minutes of taking them out of the oven!). I have a good pie crust if I want to make a cheese pie though ;).

5 comments:

  1. Have you given "tortilla mix" a try? I baked some once instead of frying it and it came out very cracker like.
    The mix is entirely differen't than any other 'bread/bisquit mix.
    w3ski

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  2. "Tortilla mix" is just flour, baking powder, and salt pre-mixed. So If I added baking powder and rolled it thinner and maybe not quite as much butter, it might have turned out more cracker like... Hrm.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If I remember correctly the mix has lime also, I am not sure of the chemistry involved there but it can easily become cracker like . Comes in corn or flour also
    w3ski

    ReplyDelete
  4. Masa flour for corn tortillas has lime in it, and if you press out corn tortillas then bake them what you get are baked tortilla chips or, if you drape them over a rack first, taco shells. There is not really any "mix" involved there, since corn tortillas are masa flour, water, and that's that, no oil or baking powder or anything like that.

    - Badtux the Tortilla-cookin' Penguin

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like it would make a top-notch quiche crust, too!

    ReplyDelete

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