Ever want to try making Cheez-its yourself?

Time:2 hours 45 minutes

Difficulty: 2/5

Ingredient Availability:5/5

Cheez-its are a very popular snack and I’m a fan of them. Seeing this recipe in this book was intriguing. Making cheese crackers at homes definitely sounded fun and like it would be something that would be better than store bought version. Looking through the recipe, everything seemed pretty simple, so I decided to give it a try.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

I would just recommend you get come quality cheeses since these are basically cheese crackers. I would expect that to make the biggest difference in this recipe. Nothing was left out of this recipe.

Tools:

• Stand Mixer

• Box Grater

Cooking Review:

Prep: 20 minutes

Most of the prep for this recipe was just shredding all of the cheese and grating the pepperoni. Pretty easy, but just time consuming.

Mixing: 8 minutes

To start, the paddle attachment was used to combine the fontina, butter, olive oil, pepperoni, and spiced until combined. The flour was added next until combined before slowly adding in the cold water until the dough came together.

Chilling and forming: 1 hour 28 minutes

I formed the dough into a ball, split it into two disks and wrapped them in plastic wrap to chill for an hour and 10 minutes. The dough was then rolled out between the two seats of plastic wrap (which was fairly difficult as the parchment paper would slip on the counter and the dough stuck to the paper). Finally, the dough was cut into squares and a toothpick was used to poke holes in the middle of all of the crackers.

Baking:30 minutes

The craters were baked at 375 for 15 minutes, turning the trays halfway through. The temperature was then reduced to 200 and cooked for another 15 minutes (as mine weren’t getting as crispy as I’d like. I sprinkled them with parmesan once they were done.

Analysis:

While I could taste the cheese, the flavor was a lot lighter than I was expecting. As I ate more, the cheese flavor definitely build up, but it still wasn’t as bold as I expected. Further, the crackers weren’t as crispy as I would’ve liked. Some pieces that were around the edges were crisp, but the majority of them were more on the chewy side. These definitely became more and more chewy in the days following cooking. The pepperoni flavor was also pretty faint. Needless to say, these were disappointing. They weren’t bad, but I don’t think they're even as good as Cheez-its. Although the recipe is pretty easy, I wouldn’t say it’s worth it to make if you can get another cheese cracker. This recipe gets a 6/10. I think if the cheese flavors were more intense and they got more crunchy, they’d rank higher.