Homemade Cheese-it Copycat Cracker Recipe

This homemade Cheese-it copycat cracker recipe is perfect for making crackers with your everyday pantry ingredients. Because you design them yourself, you can adjust cheese and salt preferences. They are still crunchy, cheesy wonderful salty bites of goodness. They are a great accompaniment to my Chicken Soup if you don’t feel like a large piece of bread.

The key to this recipe is the cheese. If you want it to be slightly tangy, use a sharp cheddar. If you prefer a more mild flavor, choose mild cheddar.

If I were making this for a picky child to replace a store-bought cracker, I would start with a milder cheese and work my way stronger until you know your child’s preference.

You can use any kind of hard cheese: cheddar, Vermont white cheddar, parmesan, asiago, or Swiss would all be good choices.

I used Measure for Measure Gluten-Free Flour for my crackers. You can use any one-to-one substitute if you need them to be gluten-free.

One caution though, this is one recipe where you cannot measure the cheese with your heart. Normally I’m all about ALL the cheese. In this recipe, if you add too much cheese the crackers will be oily and separate. Not a desired outcome at all.

Making the Crackers

Start by adding flour, tapioca or cornstarch, baking powder, and salt to a food processor.

If you do not have a food processor, you can use a mixer with either a pastry cutter or a whisk attachment. The goal is to break up the cheese and the butter until the mixture resembles sand. A handheld pastry cutter will also work.

Measure the cheese carefully, preferably with a kitchen scale. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, then start with a new block of cheese. Most small blocks of cheese are 8 ounces. Since the recipe uses 6 ounces, you know you will need 3/4ths of the block. Measure as best as you can.

Do not use pre-shredded cheese. Pre-shredded cheese has a coating that will prevent melting.

Add your cheese to the flour mixture. Either pulse to combine or use your preferred mixing method.

When finished the cheese should be in small pieces.

Then add the butter.

Pulse until the butter is combined and the mixture looks like clumpy, wet sand.

Last you are going to add ice-cold water. It will still be a crumbly dough. We don’t want too much water in the dough or the crackers will be soggy after baking. Not good.

Place four pieces of plastic wrap on the countertop. they should each be about 18 inches long. We are going to use plastic wrap to help bring the dough together and make the crackers easier to shape. Divide the dough into four even piles, each on one piece of plastic wrap. Each pile is going to become a rectangle of dough.

Pull two longer sides of the wrap together and make them overlap in the middle. Then gently help the dough on one open side move toward the middle. Fold one end over several times. You should now have three sides closed. Try to squish the air out as you go to the final side and roll it up. Now, gently with a rolling pin, roll the dough out flat until it fills the plastic rectangle. The goal is to get the dough to be about 1/8 in thick or less. Repeat with the remaining three piles of dough on plastic wrap. These do not need to be perfect. The most important part is that the dough is rolled thin and sealed inside the plastic. Chill for one hour.

Place a piece of parchment on your countertop. Very lightly dust it with flour. Remove the plastic wrap from one piece of dough and place the dough on the parchment. If the dough is not even, gently roll it with a rolling pin. Only go in one direction at a time, don’t roll back and forth or it will separate the dough. Add a little flour to the top of the dough if necessary, but don’t add much, just a slight dusting.

Cut the dough into roughly one-inch squares with a pizza cutter. It’s ok if it isn’t perfect. Anything close is good. Rustic cuts just prove it was homemade.

Using the pizza cutter to gently lift each piece, separate the dough so that the edges of each cracker can cook evenly. Lightly sprinkle with salt if desired. You can also salt them after they come out of the oven.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Start checking them for around 10 minutes to make sure the crackers don’t get burnt on the edges. You want them to be slightly crisp before you remove them from the oven. The crackers will get crunchier as they cool too.

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