This is a favorite Christmas recipe of my father's and husband's.  It's fairly simple to do and tastes good.

Cheese Straws

butter, softened

Cheddar cheese

all-purpose flour

salt

red pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).  Grease a cookie sheet.


In a large bowl cream butter and cheese.  Stir in flour and salt; mix well.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/2 inch in thickness.   Cut into 2 inch strips and sprinkle with ground red pepper.  Place strips on prepared cookie sheet(s) 1 1/2 inches apart.


Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until crisp.


I made this recipe last year and it turns out great.  A couple of pointers though, 1) watch how much cayenne pepper you put in, a LITTLE goes a long way; and 2) instead of strips, I recommend a cookie gun.  I use the small star disk and the pipped out string works out excellent.  When it STARTS to brown in the oven, remove because it will continue to cook and brown even more after removing.

If you want something different to serve as snacks, if your kids like cheese goldfishes - you will want to make this!  I made this with no cayenne pepper and with sharp cheddar cheese and it was positively scrumptious!  Make sure the butter is at room temperature, cream it first, then add the cheese, and then add the flour a little at a time.  I rolled that into a ball with my hands a little at a time and cooked for exactly 12 minutes - wonderful!

Use a cookie press to make these -- I press long ribbons then cut or break them into 1 inch pieces before baking. I'm thinking one of the small cookie press plates (like the small star) would also make more straw-like snacks.

very easy to make and tasty! the key is to as others have suggested is letting your butter and cheese come to room temp. i had no problem creaming the two together. i followed the recipe exactly with the exception of adding in 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper into my dough (instead of sprinkling on after). i also ended up adding about a cup of water to make the dough come together. i rolled it out and cut into strips. and baked for 12-15 minutes. next time because my dough was soft i will try piping these through a pastry bag to form consistent sized straws. very good snack with minimal effort! thanks!

This recipe is delicous but it was very hard to form the straws. I was unable to successfully cream the butter and cheese therefore when I tried to roll out the dough it crumbled. Any suggestions?

This recipe is wonderful! Although my dough (as recipe says) was fine originally I added two eggs to fluff it up a bit so I had to add some extra flour. I also added about a tablespoon of garlic powder used a little less salt but sprinkled coarse salt on top. I also put the red pepper on top it gave it a nice kick. Very light and fluffy with wonderful flavor!

I used three cups of cheese instead of four dropped my temp to 375 and baked for 10 minutes and they turned out perfect. Reducing the amount of cheese allowed the taste (not heat) of the red pepper to come out a little more. If you reduce the cheese you need to also reduce the temp and cook time or they will overcook. TIP - use Cracker Barrel extra sharp and don't buy pre-shredded cheese. shred the cheese cold and allow the butter and cheese to come to room temp before you cream them. I used an electric mixer to cream the cheese and butter but I mixed the dry ingredients in by hand. DON'T USE WATER. Mold the dough by hand for about 10 min and it will be ready to roll out (something my grandmother taught me). Don't try to roll out the entire dough mixture at once. Break it into smaller fist-size dough balls and do several batches. This will allow you to figure out how thin/thick you want your cheese straws to be. It also gives you a chance to adjust your cooking temp and time since everyone's ovens are a little different.

These were really good however I did add about 1/3 cup water to the recipe to get it to stick together. It was then about like pie dough. Also I cut the heat back to 375 because the first batch was too brown after 11 min.

these are really terrific but there was one problem- i could not get the butter and cheese to "cream". is that even possible? i had to warm the cheese a bit to get it to mesh with everything but after that they turned out great.

cheese straws

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total: 30 minutes

Servings: 5

Cost: $3.16 /serving

Author : Leigh

Ingredients

Instructions

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