Cheese Straws
Updated June 26, 2024
- Total Time
- About 1 hour
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1½cups flour
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½pound sharp orange Cheddar, room temperature
- ½cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grate cheese.
- Step 2
In a food processor, pulse dry ingredients until combined, then add cheese and butter. Process until dough becomes smooth and has the texture of Play-Doh. Alternately, make the dough in a stand mixer by creaming cheese and butter until smooth. Then combine dry ingredients in a bowl and combine with butter mixture at low speed until smooth.
- Step 3
Shape the dough into a cylinder, wrap with plastic wrap or parchment and allow to rest for 20 minutes. Or store in the refrigerator until ready to bake.
- Step 4
Bring dough to room temperature and pack it into a cookie press fitted with a star disk. Pipe long ribbons of dough across the baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat, about an inch apart. Then cut into six-inch lengths. Repeat with remaining dough. Dough may also be hand-rolled into long ropes and cut to size, or shaped into a cylinder and sliced into rounds and baked.
- Step 5
Bake for about 13 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown. Store between sheets of parchment or waxed paper in an airtight container. Will keep for up to three weeks.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I make this once a week for Friday cocktails. I often use a gruyere in place of the cheddar.
Every week Friday cocktails? I wish I were your friend!
Made these as "Cheddar pennies" too - but beware over-salting them! The Cheddar I used first time was a bit salty and so was the butter. Next batch, with no added salt, was much better.
I have celiac disease, and I make these gluten free for my goldfish-starved kids using garbanzo or garbanzo/fava flour—still delicious and lots of free protein! I also don't bother with the pastry bag. I mold the dough into rectangles and refrigerate wrapped in parchment. Then I just slice and bake. Easy cheese crackers!
Pursuant to my great-grandmother's recipe, I add 1 teaspoon of fresh baking powder. Cheers!
Made these last night for a dinner party. Sliced into coins instead of piping - very easy. Did 1/2 inch slices but think would be much better if thinner. Will try 1/4 inch next time. I had made them ahead, and they lost a bit of their crispness after being in storage container for the day, so heated in toaster oven prior to serving - crisped right back up and provided nice cheesy aroma to greet my guests! Definitely a repeater.
Although these cheese straws will keep up to three weeks, they're best eaten the same day they're baked. I roll them into two or more cylinders and keep them in the freezer to use as needed.
Delicious, pretty, and light using the cookie press. When I resorted to hand rolling them, they seemed much more pedestrian. Mine came out looking like kids had rolled out play doh snakes.
I make them as cheddar pennies and add chopped chive
s for the flavor and green flecks.
You should not as general rule use salted butter in any recipe unless it is specified. Salted butter is variable in saltiness so using unsalted butter gives you better control. Most professionally written recipes presume you know to use sweet butter
Used gluten-free flour, which is always much drier than all-purpose flour. Had to add water for the dough to come together but this wasn't unexpected. Rested for 20 mins at room temperature, packed into cookie press, baked. Perfect results.
Used to make this eons ago as "Cheddar Pennies" and they were always a hit. As Carey Green notes, it's easy to keep them in the fridge, wrapped in plastic or foil and slice off and bake what you need. Maybe it's time to whip up another batch.
I just roll mine like a square pie crust and then cut with a pizza cutter! Works great! Also use my Christmas cookie cutter for different shapes to give as gifts. This recipe works great every time.
add 2 Tbs of water to douh. Excellent recipe,
The dough did not come together. I added two tablespoons more of butter and it was perfect.
Halve the salt! Or use even less, like 1/4 tsp
Used 1/8 tsp cayenne and every thing else as written. Also, I converted flour to 188 grams. Perfect!
Tried 3 separate batches with varying flours : pastry, white, and whole wheat. I never quite got the seasoning HOT enough that this Southern Girl is used to. It's a good foundational recipe to take your own way, so I am sticking with it!!
Made as written except I used Kerrygold Dubliner for the cheese and rolled them out. I cut them into tiny holiday shapes, baked for 9 minutes and they are perfect. I saved half the dough and may have to get it back out of the freezer because we have people coming over and my partner will NOT stop snacking on these! Lol
These are amazing but the yield is not anywhere near 5 dozen. It’s worth at least doubling the recipe if you’re serving at a party.
These are delicious and definitely worth buying good-quality cheese. I have made them as written and with substitutions: omitting the salt and using salted butter as well as using King Arthur GF measure-for-measure flour. All turn out beautifully!
Couldn’t find my my cookie press, so made half “pennies” and half hand rolled straws. Sliced the pennies thinly and pressed out on the silpat. I added 1 tsp baking powder, and the straws and pennies were nice and light.
I'm glad I read the notes before I made them. I ended up with two tablespoons of water to get the dough to come together. I made them into tubes and cut into coins. I found that cutting them thinner is better. Next time I'd add chives as suggested by someone. Very yummy and I'll do it again.
I used a cookie press to make wreath shapes was worried about sticking. I pressed my shapes directly onto aluminum cookie sheets, and the finished cheese wreaths came right off with a spatula after baking. No problem with sticking and no parchment necessary.
Made quickly into coins that were not misshapen by the knife by using the dental floss method (unwaxed, unflavoured). Rolled dough one inch in diameter and then easily made quarter-inch slices by sliding the floss under the roll, crossing the ends and gently pulling them. Flat round coins pop off. Used Gruyère which was delicious but will experiment with other cheeses.
Like Goldfish crackers for grownups! Made coins and used Vermont Farmstand Cheddy Topper (cheddar with Heady Topper IPA). Also added fresh thyme for color since our cheddar was more yellow than orange. Baked 14 minutes at 375. Delicious!
Can these go straight from the freezer into the oven?
OK, these are terrific--I have a log in the freezer right now. Minor beef--when offering alternative preparations, such as "roll the batch into a couple of logs..." it would be nice to offer necessary instructions for at least one alternative. What size log cut to what size penny takes how long to bake? So, from experience: a log about 1 inch in diameter, cut into 1/4"pennies, is just about perfect at 15 minutes @ 375 in my oven. Just saying...
I used my cookie press, but instead of straws I made small ovals, figuring they'd be less fragile. They made the trip across the state without crumbling. Yay. And they were the perfect size to pop one in your mouth. One after another.
I add a dash of mustard powder and it really rounds out the flavor. I snagged that hint from a gougere recipe that has a similar flavor palette. The cookie gun is great but it can be a mess to clean all the parts. Rolling out long snakes and then twisting them together takes a little more time but a lot less cleanup.
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