Homemade Wholewheat Cheddar Crackers, the Lazy Man’s Way

6 / 25 / 136 / 25 / 13

Whenever Miss G and I have her very favourite homemade cheddar crackers out during play dates, our guests say two things – “yum!” and “how long did they take to cut out?!” I must admit, cutting out several baking sheets full of teeny tiny moons or hearts takes a loooooong time. And while most of the time I can muster up the energy, today I decided we’d take the easy route.

First up, we followed our recipe as usual and combined all of the ingredients into a soft cheesy dough using our food processor.

Then we placed the dough between two layers of parchment, rolled it out nice and thin, and used a pizza cutter to slice them into quick and easy squares.

I contemplated just placing the entire sheet onto a baking pan and cooking them in one big mass, but in the end, decided to scoop them up and flip them onto a pan while quickly separating them.

And because they reminded both Brad and I of Cheez-Its (one of the only ‘Americanized’ types of crackers available during our four years in Kuwait), I added the centre holes with one of our teeny dowels just for fun.

We baked them as usual, and even though little squares may be a little more on the boring side, they’re every bit as delicious!

♥

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{Heart-Shaped} Wholewheat Cheese Crackers

2 / 1 / 139 / 22 / 13

Today Gracen and I whipped up a batch of what is easily her most loved treat in the entire world – our homemade version of the classic ‘fishy crackers’. Though I’ve shared this recipe before, I thought I’d share it again as we did things a teeny bit differently this time around… Plus, this heart-shaped version would make a perfect treat for Valentine’s Day.

First off, our ingredients… We used the usuals, but tried using a coarse stone ground wholewheat flour, replaced the cheddar with Colby and fresh parmesan, and added some basil into our spice mix.

Then my little helper dumped everything together.

Instead of mixing everything in our mixer like we have in the past, this time we did it in the food processor I got for my birthday. It definitely allowed the dough to come together more easily, and as guessed, adding a touch of water wasn’t necessary in the food processor.

With all of the ingredients well mixed, we dumped everything out onto our workspace and used our hands to form it into a large mass.

Then we patted it down by hand, covered it with parchment, and rolled it out nice and thin.

It must be all the talk about Valentine’s Day festivities, because Grae chose a heart-shaped cookie cutter this time around.

We cut out endless hearts, carefully lifted them with the flat edge of a butter knife, and transferred them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

We popped them in the oven, and in no time, we had crispy, tender crackers that are full of flavour and free of preservatives.

See our original recipe here.

Wholewheat Cheese Crakers

2 cups of Colby cheese
1 cup of fresh parmesan
8 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne paper
1/8 teaspoon of dried basil
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt (optional)

1/4 cup of warm water (if mixing by hand or using an electric mixer – not necessary in a food processor)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine all ingredients and gently form dough into a ball.

Sandwich dough between two layers of parchment and roll it out to 1/8 of an inch thick. Form shapes with a cookie cutter, dipping it in flour from time to time if needed. Gently transfer crackers to a parchment-lined baking sheet using the flat edge of a butter knife if needed.

Bake the crackers for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are just barely browned at the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Enjoy!

♥

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{1 ingredient} Cheese Crisps

3 / 21 / 1210 / 23 / 14

These little cheese crisps are Gracens ULTIMATE favourite snack. We don’t make them that often, but when we do, they have to be kept in a high cupboard hidden from both Grae and Bradley if they have any chance of surviving more than a day or two. They’re the kind of snack you pull out when your little one’s getting his or her hair cut, or when you’re attempting to complete a 10 kilometre seawall walk with your munchkin strapped into a stroller for an hour and a half. The bonus is that they’re ridiculously easy to make and take all of 3 minutes from start to finish.

All you need is some cheese (we normally use an all-natural cheddar and today we also tried some jalapeño havarti) sliced and cut into squares {the thickness doesn’t really matter – both thin and thick work perfectly} and a griddle or a frying pan and a stove top.

We start with the griddle unplugged and off so that Miss G can help out like a little sous chef should. Place the cheese squares on the griddle leaving plenty of space in between each (we placed ours too closely together today and ended up with a couple of GIANT cheese crisps).

Once your cheese is on the griddle, plug it in and crank it up to 300 degrees {when we use the stove, we just start with a hot frying pan over medium heat}.

Watch closely as the griddle begins to warm up and work its magic.

Give it a few minutes so that all of the cheese is fully melted and bubbly. Here’s the key… For the first bit, the cheese will look melty and very oily (yes, gross). But suddenly, the oil will seem to disappear and the cheese will look slightly browned, crunchy, and ‘dry’. Dry is the key. At this point, you want to use a spatula or flipper to remove the rounds from the griddle. Place them on a couple of paper towels to cool and use another paper towel to gently blot any extra oil from the tops of the crisps (I despise using paper towel because it’s not at all environmentally friendly, but I have tried using a cloth towel, and it just doesn’t seem to do the job quite as well).

When they’re done, your cheese crisps should look something like this.

Give a couple to your toddler and watch her gobble them up like you haven’t fed her in a week. Quickly hide the rest and hope they last longer than a day.

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