Really Easy Cheese Straws (Baking)

Member Name: skittle

Product:	Baking
Date:	13/11/07 (3702 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really quick and easy to make with limited skill in baking

Disadvantages: High in calories

Making cheese straws is really easy baking that will still impress your friends and family no end. These can be knocked together in 20 mins, with very little effort on your part.

You will need:

Ingredients:
- Ready made puff pastry
- Block of hard cheese, I prefer a mature cheddar (or you can buy a bag of ready grated cheese to make it even easier)
- Small amount of milk
- A little flour

Equipment:
- Cheese grater
- Rolling pin
- Baking tray
- Fish slice
- Wire cooling rack (you can use the one from your grill pan if you don’t have another)
- Sharp knife
- Cooker

Cooking Instructions:
1) The first thing you’ll need to do is get your oven on to preheat at gas mark 7, 425f or 220c.

2) Grate the cheese if you haven’t bought it ready grated

3) Sprinkle a little flour onto the clean work surface and your rolling pin.

4) If your pastry is ready rolled this is even easier, just plonk it onto your floured surface so it’s in a portrait position, taller than it is wide, as you look at it. If yours isn’t ready rolled, don’t worry, you just need to use your rolling pin to make it into a rectangle then position it as above.

5) You now need to take your grated cheese and sprinkle a handful over the top two thirds of your rectangle of pastry, leaving the bottom third plain.

6) When you’re happy that the top two thirds of your pastry have a nice even covering of cheese, gently lift up the bottom third of pastry, the part without cheese, and fold it over on top of the middle third, sandwiching the cheese in between the two pastry layers.

7) Now do the same again, this time folding the new double layer on top of the top third of the pastry. If you’ve done this right you should now have a little rectangular parcel of pastry with all of the cheese sandwiched inside (apart from the little bits poking out of the edge!)

8) Turn this parcel once to right or left so that you’re looking at the edge that probably has bits of cheese sticking out between the folds.

9) Roll the pastry out into a large rectangle again, fill the top two thirds with cheese and refold. Turn again, before repeating this step 3or 4 times. You need to add cheese for a total of 4-6 times, depending on how cheesy you like your cheese straws.

10) When you’ve added your final handful of cheese and folded the pastry keep the parcel with the smooth end facing you, so the cheesy ends are on either side. Use a sharp knife to slice your pastry into finger sized strips, from top to bottom along the pastry. About 2cm, or an inch, is about the right width.

11) Arrange these pastry fingers on your baking tray, leaving gaps between them as they’ll rise and expand during cooking. Brush the fingers with milk.

12) Put your baking tray on the top shelf of the oven and go and have a glass of wine for ten minutes, you’ve earned it!

13) Ten minutes after putting your cheese straws in the oven you need to check to see if they’re a lovely golden brown colour. If they’re black, you've set the oven too high. If they’re still looking pale leave them for a couple of minutes before checking again, keep checking every minute or two, as they can burn very easily, until they’re golden brown. Then remove from the oven, use a fish slice to transfer them to the cooling wire. Leave them to cool down for at least a couple of minutes (if you can last that long) before eating.

I like these best served with a dollop of humous to dip the ends into, but they’re just as good plain, especially warm from the oven.

One word of warning, really easy cheese straws are addictive, but as they’re so very, very high in fat and calories they should only be an occasional indulgence.

Summary: So easy even I can cook them