Cheddar Goldfish Crackers

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. white ground pepper (optional)
4 TBSP cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 ounces grated cheddar cheese
3-4 TBSP water

Pulse the flour, salt and pepper, then add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add grated cheese a little at a time until the mixture again resembles coarse meal.

Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, one tablespoon at a time, and only enough so that the dough forms a ball and rides the blade.

Remove, wrap in plastic, and chill for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.

Roll the dough out to 1/8th-inch thickness directly onto a baking sheet.
Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut 1 inch squares, then bake at 350° F for 15-20 minutes or until crackers are golden brown. If the outer edges your pan are done but the crackers in the center still need a few more minutes- remove crackers on the edges and bake the center crackers for a few more minutes.

Remove from oven and recut any squares that may be stuck together. Store in an airtight container for up to one week or freeze.

*****
These taste amazing! I’ve tried a few different cheese cracker recipes over the years and these are the lightest, crispiest, fastest and best tasting! They are quick to make if you cut them into squares and luckily my daughter prefers the squares over the animal shapes! They taste more like a Cheese Nips cracker to me but have the light texture of a Goldfish cracker.

If you do want to make animal shape crackers, then roll dough directly onto a baking sheet, cut out crackers using your smallest cookie cutter (mine are about 1 inch by 1 inch). Using a sharp knife, remove the scraps of dough between the animal shapes by carefully lifting the scraps out (if you don’t remove them, your crackers will stick to the scraps while baking). This step doesn’t take too long but it is much faster than cutting out the crackers on the counter, then transferring them to the baking sheet.

Roll the scraps out onto a second baking sheet and continue to cut out more cracker shapes. Recipe courtesy of Country Living. Enjoy!

27 comments:

emily said...

You never cease to amaze me. Do you sometimes just sit there in your kitchen, thinking to yourself, "yeah...I can make homemade ANYTHING?"

Let's be honest: You inspire me. I want to cook more like you!

Emily said...

Emily, you are too kind! It is fun to find a good new recipe to recreate something I haven't eaten for years. I'm always surprised how my memory of packaged foods I ate years ago haven't faded and I still miss those flavors. :)

I've still got a long ways to go before I can cook ANYTHING, but I'm slowly getting there- one recipe at a time!

Your alfredo pizza looks so yummy, I'm going to try it this weekend!
Emily

Hillary said...

I love your blog! My kids and I made this cracker recipe last week. I didn't roll the dough quite thin enough, so we're going to try it again this coming week! I've got plans to make several more of your recipes soon!

I have my own cooking blog as well. Do you mind if I post some of your recipes on there with links to your blog?

Emily said...

Hi Hillary, I'm glad you made the goldfish crackers- they are SO good! Thanks for the feedback. If you can get your dough a little thinner, then you'll get a flakey, crispy cracker instead of the soft and chewy cracker you probably had (I've made the same mistake). :)

I enjoy reading your cooking blog as well- feel free to post any recipes you want on your blog.

Keep me posted on what other recipes you try.

Ellie said...

Hi Emily,
I just came upon your blog recently. I just made the crackers...and they were SOOOO good! Tasted just like the goldfish crakers....but better! Thanks for a w onderful recipe. By the way, I tried these using all whole wheat flour...they were just as good. I will soon post this on my blog and link back to you~Ellie

Emily said...

Hi Ellie- Thanks for the feedback, great to know that whole wheat flour works well- thank you! Glad to hear the crackers were a hit. Thanks, Emily

Ellie said...

Hi Emily!
Thought you would enjoy seeing the crackers I made...
http://homecookinginmontana.blogspot.com/2010/02/cheddar-crackersreminiscent-of-goldfish.html

Thank you so much for the inspiration!~Ellie

Anonymous said...

You've been featured on lifehacker! :o
http://goo.gl/4bQk

Stuart Robinson said...

Just found your goldfish crackers recipe on life hacker and gave it a try! yummy but I think i'll leave the salt out next time, as mature cheddar is very salty too

Fe said...

Goldfish crackers... I Love Goldfish crackers. :-) This looks awesome. Thanks very much for the recipe.

DC said...

Anyone have suggestions to alter this recipe to resemble the pizza flavored goldfish crackers?

Schlepp said...

Thanks for the recipe.

Re: Pizza flavored. I recall that Chef Paul Prudhomme had a "Pizza Magic" spice blend, but I don't see it on his website. That or something like it plus plenty of Parm. would probably get you there.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Just made these. My daughter loves them. I think it's both a great and easy recipe, too.

Holly said...

I finally got the courage to make these and I'm glad I did. They came out perfect thanks to the other comments on thickness. Thankfully, my son had a 1 inch fish in his playdough kit and that made for some great looking fish and efficently cut cookie sheets. Also, his playdough scraping tool had the perfect pointy tool to work the excess dough from the sheet. Once I did 2 cookie sheets solid of fish and ducks, I used my ruffled potato chip cutter to make some fancy looking squares.

These are very crisp and I can't wait to let my cracker crazy 17 mth old try them.

Holly said...

Well, my 17 mth liked them. Unfortunately, due to me leaving our snack drawer slightly ajar, I discovered my dogs enjoyed them most of all. I guess the cheese smell was enough to encourage them to figure out how to open the drawer and the double recipe that I had made (I messed up on the salt and had to double it), was no more. Sad, sad ending to a "full nap" of time spent. So, you may need to add a new blog category "great no msg dog treats". ha ha

Jessica said...

I've made these twice now, Emily, and my daughter and i love them. I've never like commercially-baked cheese crackers, so these are a perfect alternative. In today's version, I decided not to chill it and instead ran it through my hand-cranked pasta machine to get perfectly rolled sheets of dough. I cut out circles with a 1" round cookie cutter. I also tried docking two of the pans of crackers, but there was no appreciable difference in cracker puffiness, so no docking in the future! I also found that I got about 150 crackers from the recipe, at about 12 calories per cracker. So, a serving of 10 crackers comes in about 120 calories. Considering it's fresh, local cheese, raw milk, and organic flour and nothing I can identify or pronounce, I think that's an okay snack! Plus, when you're making your own, no one is going to be mindlessly shoveling crackers into his or her mouth! Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous said...

These were amazing! I rolled them extra thin, cut them extra large and put peanut butter in the middle to make little sandwiches! Thanks for a great and easy recipe share.

Sherri said...

I made these today and they turned out great! Made them gluten free (we're intolerant) and also added some rosemary. yum!

Sherri said...

This is a great recipe! Thank you for posting it! I am wondering if you could shed any light on homemade baby treats, ie...the Gerber Puffs. My 9 mo loves them but they contain too much sugar. Any ideas?

Emily said...

Thanks Sherri. Sorry I don't have any amazing recipes for homemade baby treats that are like the puffs. If you find a great recipe, will you let me know? Thanks, Emily

Kristen said...

I have made these 3 times this week, but have used different flours (unbleached) and have substituted some of the butter for coconut oil, and also added flax seed meal. Can't believe how good they are, and the recipe is nearly fool proof since I only measure the flour and guess on the rest and they still turn out great every time. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

Emily said...

Thanks for the comment Kristen. How much coconut oil did you use? Great idea to add some flax seed. I'll try your alterations next time I make these. Thanks!

Tasha said...

Just found your blog and the cheese crackers. And made them today! LOVE them!!! I am wondering though if you have ever made them with whole wheat flour?
I look forward to trying some of your other recipes this week.
Thanks so much for all your work and sharing!!!

E H Pipal said...

I want to make this recipe soon, but I'm curious whether the dough is DIRECTLY on the baking sheet, or should I put a parchment paper there first? Thanks! Sorry if this question has already been answered...I'm trying to sneak getting some things done while both my sons are still napping...!

Unknown said...

Made a variation of these today, used spelt flour and kale (made kale chips then ground them into powder). So many more variations to try. Also, used parchment paper because I was afraid the pizza cutter would scratch my cookie sheets.

Anonymous said...

Why do you avoid foods with Whey?