Cheese Straws

I made these a while ago when I was sending Sharon the care package, but the recipe was big enough that I didn't end up cooking the whole batch. I wrapped about half the batch in plastic and stuck it in my freezer, and then found it yesterday while rooting through looking for something else. Three months apparently was no problem for these guys, clearly they have enough butter in them, because they turned out GREAT. In Ed's words, "these are going to disappear SO FAST". But really, how can you go wrong with butter, cheese, and a little spice?

The recipe is straight from King Arthur Flour, and really doesn't require any tweaking whatsoever. I've reprinted it below with what I did for shaping the straws:

2-1/2 C Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
3 C cheddar cheese, grated
1-1/2 sticks cold butter (from the freezer)
1/2 cup + 2 tbs water

Combine the flour, baking powder, cayenne and salt. Using a cheese grater, grate the butter into the flour mixture. Add 1-1/2C of the cheese. Use your fingers to rub this mixture together, sort of working some of the flour into the butter and cheese, but not too much. You don't want to melt the butter. Add the water, and mix it until it forms a dry dough. Wrap it in plastic and chill for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, take out the dough, flour the table, and roll it out to a 12x18" rectangle. Sprinkle on the remaining cheese. Fold the dough in thirds (like a letter), and roll it out again. I folded and rolled one more time, and then put it back in the refrigerator. After 10 minutes, I took it out and rolled and folded three more times. It is so stiff after the chilling that I figured I'd just give it one more fold and roll while I was at it. Or something along those lines. Then return it to the fridge for another 10 minutes.

To form the straws, I rolled out the dough and just used a knife to cut rectangles. Most of them I just baked as they were, but some of them I tried twisting them as I put them down on the baking sheet. This sort of worked, but mostly they just untwisted before setting in the oven. All that folding and rolling made for a wonderfully flaky dough, though.

Bake the straws for 10-15 minutes at 400F, until they're golden brown.


It sounds like a lot of work, but it is TOTALLY worth it to make these little cheesy bits of goodness. Because they're delicious.