Homemade Cheez-Its

So dinners have definitely become less processed with freezer cooking and making our own muffins, poptarts, pancakes, and other items have made breakfast less processed but I am still buying things I don't really want to for easy snacks, for home and for Harper to take to school.  Then a friend sent me a link to how to make our own Cheez-Its.  I was so excited because my girls love little cracker things and the recipe looked pretty darn easy.  So yesterday, the girls and I headed to the kitchen to try this out ourselves.  

Here's the ingredients we used:

• 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese (you can use the pre-shredded kind or use a grater on a cheese block) 
• 4 Tbs of butter (I would soften it. I had mine out of the fridge for a little while before using it but it needed to be softer because it was a little hard to get it all mixed in well.)
• 3/4 cup of flour (we used whole wheat)
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• coarse or sea salt to sprinkle on tops of crackers 

*This recipe will make between 9 1/2-10 dozen crackers.

Taking turns rolling out the dough

Instructions:

• Put all ingredients into your food processor and pulse until it forms a doughy consistency (I do not own a food processor so we used the blender and it worked just fine.) 
• Take your dough out and put it between two pieces of wax paper.
• Using a rolling pin (I actually have one of those..haha) roll the dough out to about 1/8 of an inch thick.
• Using a pastry wheel or small cookie cutter or even a pizza cutter (like we did) cut dough into shapes.
•  Place on a parchment lined baking sheet about 1/2" apart from each other.  
• Poke a hole in the center of each cracker (we used the back end of a wooden skewer and it was the perfect shape and size) so that they don't puff up too much.  
• Sprinkle with coarse or sea salt
  

  

  Harper poking holes in the center of the crackers with the back end of a skewer

  Bake at 350ºF for 8-12 minutes (depending on the size and shape of your crackers), until lightly browned on the edges. Cool on the baking sheet and store in an airtight container.

 

Sprinkled with coarse salt and ready for the oven

I definitely had my doubts but these were delicious and the girls loved them too. Guess what Harper requested to take for snack at school today?!

If you give these a try, let me know what you think and please remember to like me on Facebook!

Recipe from http://www.cookingalamel.com