Cheese Straws
Course: Cakes, Bakes and PastriesCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy20
servings30
minutes15
minutes134
kcal20
minutes1
hour5
minutesCheese straws are your go-to party snacky bites, with just two ingredients: cheese and puff pastry, they don’t cost a fortune and certainly don’t take forever to make.They can be as long or as short as you like, as thick or as thin, and as twisty or straight, your choiceBut what you can’t compromise on is the quality of the ingredients.The Pastry.You can use short pastry in that’s your preference, but here I use All Butter Puff Pastry. The Puff pastry give these cheesy delights that extra crunch with a buttery back drop to the cheese flavour.The Cheese.To keep these straws crunchy and full of flavour, only use mature aged cheese that most of the moisture has evaporated from. Parmesan, Aged Mature Cheddar, are the two that I believe give Cheese Straws a full on cheesy kick.If you are a real cheese lover a little extra cheese will only enhance the flavour, go for it.
For an added spicy kick add some dried mustard and paprika, they just about finish of these crunchy cheesy sticks of delight.
Ingredients
400 g Puff Pastry (All butter)
115 g Mixed Hard Aged Cheese Mature Cheddar, Parmesan
1 tsp English mustard powder
1 tsp Paprika
Directions
- Heat the oven to 400°F/200°C/Gas Mark 6
- Line a Baking tray with Baking parchment, you don’t want the tray too large, as you are going to place it in the refrigerator to rest. If you have to use 2 trays that’s ok
- Grate the cheese fairly finely into a bowl
- Add the mustard powder and paprika and mix well
- Roll out the puff pastry to about 3 mm (⅛ of an inch) into a rectangle
- Sprinkle ⅓ of the cheese mix on a clean work surface and lay the rolled out pastry on top
- Sprinkly ½ of the remaining cheese mix over the pastry and using a rolling pin, roll the cheese and pastry just to press the cheese into the pastry.
- Fold the pastry in half and roll back out to 3 mm thick rectangle picking up any surplus cheese left on the work surface
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese mix over the rolled out pastry and again roll the pastry to press down the cheese
- Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the pastry lengthways into ½” strips.
- Take each strip one at a time and twist it as you lay it onto the baking tray
- When you have all pastry twisted and on the baking tray, place the baking tray in the fridge for 20 minutes to rest and firm up
- Bake in the oven for about 15 mins or until golden brown, if you are using 2 trays alternate them top to bottom halfway through baking
- Let them cool from the oven and munch away