what I made last night: cheese straws

[pennie_dreadful]

I was inspired to make a batch of cheese straws by newwaytowrite; I wanted to make something anyway and this is probably the one baked good that does not require eggs, which I do not have.  The one hitch was, I only have a block of swiss cheese and not the sharp cheddar the recipe calls for.  And the only reason I have cheese at all is because the school was going to throw it away just because it was a little moldy!  So I rescued it.  I mean come on, moldly cheese is perfectly edible, and anyway you can just cut the moldy bits out if you don't like it.  So yeah, I have a ton of swiss cheese.  It took some modifying and doing, because I don't have cayenne either, but the last batch I made turned out alright.

Ingredients (original recipe that's been in my family forever)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
2 sticks (1/2 cup) butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 F/205 C.  Combine all ingredients thoroughly.  If you have a pastry bag, you can use it to pipe out little "straws" (hence the name) but I just made little balls and flattened them with a fork.  Bake for ten minutes.

Ingredients (modified)
2 cups all purpose flour
4 cups grated swiss cheese
2 sticks butter, melted
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon salt, plus an extra tablespoon, reserved

Same method, except I sprinkled more salt over the tops of the straws before baking.  They were not nearly as flavorful as they would be id I'd used cheddar, so on the next batch I added more cheese, but it was still a bit bland, even then, so that's where the extra salt came in.  The last batch was as good as I was going to get them without giving myself high blood pressure on the spot!  All the same, next time I'll just make the regular cheddar straws. 

If you've never had cheese straws before, they're kind of a cross between a cracker and a shortbread cookie, in terms of texture.  Crunchy-crumbly, and very rich, from all the butter. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[aurillia.livejournal.com]

Mustard and cheese... mmm, I would mix curry powder and cheese, and mustard and honey, but I haven't tried putting mustard and cheese together. That would definitely give them a flavour boost.