Cheddar Chive Crackers

Submitted by Maria Jette

🍽 Ingredients

ca. 2.5 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
I tsp salt
I tsp ground black pepper
8 oz (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
6 oz grated SHARP cheddar cheese .75 – I cup chopped fresh chives (Yes, it’s a lot of chives! the original recipe says 2T, which is simply not enough! Grow your own chives, and you’ll be desperate to use
an entire cup!)
2 Tbs water

📝 Instructions

This is easiest in a standing mixer, but if your butter is truly room temperature you can do it in a bowl with a spatula.

Stir the butter until creamy.
Add salt and pepper and chives.
Mix in the cheese.
Mix in the flour.
Drizzle water over the slightly crumbly dough, mix until it holds together:

Now you may roll it out and cut into crackers, then place them on a parchment-lined sheet pan, OR…
Divide dough in half, and roll into a log of whatever diameter you want your “crackers”—| think these rich little biscuits are best no larger than 1.5” in diameter.

Wrap in wax paper or parchment (or plastic wrap, which I’m trying to wean myself away from !), and set the logs in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

After at least half an hour (or the next day, slice the log into 25″ thick discs, and set them on a parchment-lined sheet pan. When nice and cold, they’! hold their shape as they bake, but leave space between them.

Start the oven: 350°F
Bake 18-22 minutes…but at 15 minutes, consider flipping them over. The browning mostly happens on the side touching the pan.

NOTE: Once you’ve made the logs, you could wrap them in a couple of layers and freeze them for at least a couple of months. Then just bring them out, slice & bake. You could make 4 smaller logs, and just bake fresh batches for yourself!