Cabot Crisps for the Chicago Food Swap

This past weekend we attended our second Chicago Food Swap and we made something delectable.  Cabot Cheese sponsored the food swap and picked two bloggers to make something with their products.  We lucked out and got picked!!  I've worked with Cabot Cheeses before and absolutely love their products.  A branch of my family actually lives in Barre, VT where Cabot is based.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to make, but knew I wanted it to be something with cheese.  There were two things I was debating either crackers or a farm loaf studded with cheddar.  I went with crackers.  I thought they'd be cute if I used the electric cookie press to make holiday shapes.  If I'd been able to find the electric cookie press, that is.  It's lost somewhere in the depths of the basement.  If you've ever seen my basement, you'd understand.  

So I tried to make cute holiday cheese-y crackers with the manual cookie press....lets just say it was a dismal failure.  They came out huge and way too thick.  That left me with hand rolling and cutting the cracker dough.  Let's just say there is a reason most people don't make crackers at home.  It's a lot of work!  Ours turned out great, I mean you really can't go wrong when you use Cabot Cheese, but I don't know that I'd make them again.  Or at least not enough to share!  They were easy until about the third batch when you want to just get them all baked, but you can only peel one cracker off the sheet at a time!  Next time, we will definitely try parchment paper instead.  The best part about this recipe is that you really get the cheesy goodness because the main ingredient is cheese!  No overly complicated recipe with loads of add-ins.  We like our cheese straight up with a slight crisp! We hope you enjoy our recipe for Cabot Crisps!  

Cabot Crisps

8 ounces Cabot Cheese of your choice, shredded

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3 tablespoons water

After much trial and error, I used the food processor for the entire dough making process.

First using the shredding blade, shred your cheese.  Change out to the chopping blade.  Add butter, salt and flour to the shredded cheese.  Pulse until it forms a crumbly mixture. Remove top, sprinkle in water (you'll need 2 tablespoons for full fat cheeses and 3 tablespoons for low-fat cheeses) and pulse until a dough forms.

Now comes the fun part!  Get two good sized sheets of waxed paper.  Take a third of the dough, roll it out to between 1/8th-1/16th of an inch thick and cut with a pizza cutter.  Move each cracker by hand to an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  Crackers will puff and turn golden.