Home-Made Cheese Cookies

How about baking some of these tasty savory cookies for a birthday party or just for a fun snack? They’re light and crunchy and you can use cookie cutters to make them any shape you want. The only thing is that they’re so good that you’ll have to make enough for the grown-ups too or they’ll be eating your share!

These turn out light and airy like cheese straws. This recipe isn’t at all spicy, but you can add a pinch or two of cayenne pepper if you like hot flavors.

Another great thing about these is that they are healthy, so if your teacher has asked for healthy snacks for a school bake sale, or your Mom doesn’t want you to bake too many sweet things, these should keep them all happy!

Collect together some different shaped cutters. The plastic shaped cutters that come with play dough work just as well as metal ones and often have fun shapes. Just make sure to clean off any dried up bits of play dough before you use them for these cookies!

If you’re making them for a little brother or sister’s birthday party they’ll love a variety of animal shapes. For the grown-ups stars go down well or hearts. If you can’t find any cookie cutters at all, you can cut the dough into strips, give them one or two twists and they make cool looking cheese straws.

If you feel like really treating the grown-ups you can substitute 1oz of fresh parmesan cheese for 1 oz of the cheddar for a really sophisticated flavor.

Cheese Cookies Recipe

1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) soft butter
8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 teaspoon paprika

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Collect together these kitchen tools: grater, mixing bowl, rolling pin, cookie cutters, baking tray, measuring cups.

Grease the baking tray with a scrap of the butter paper.

Put all the ingredients into a big bowl and mix with your clean hands. It will take a while to come together, but if you squish and knead long enough, you’ll end up with a slightly crumbly, golden, soft dough.

Sprinkle a clean surface with flour and roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch thick. (If you don’t have a rolling pin, a clean bottle works just as well!)

Cut out as many shapes as you can and put them on to the baking tray.

Squash up the left over pieces into a ball and roll out again, as many times as you need to until you have used up the dough. Don’t worry if the dough crumbles when you roll it out. You can squish it back together quite easily and have another go. The more you work it the easier it gets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until the cookies are a light golden brown.

Cool them on a rack, then store in an airtight container.

For a bake sale you could package these in the smallest size freezer bags – with 4 or five different shapes in each.