Cheese Straws Recipes

Bridal shower food calls upon every dish possible, especially if it is an appetizer, to include itself on the bridal shower menu. If the dish happens to be traditional in nature, even better! There are some appetizers which are considered to be staunch must includes on the bridal shower menu, one of the most prominent ones being cheese straws. They are the quintessential dips for soups, can adeptly be slipped into submarine sandwiches or be consumed with wine to achieve a combined zany taste which simply pops on your tongue buds. The cheese straw is especially famous in the United Kingdom and in the great Southern part of the United States of America.

Bridal Shower Cheese Straws

The cheese straw used for bridal showers comes in all shapes, sizes and varieties. You have the typical, plaited cheese straw and you may have the little encircled, wreath-like cheese straw with indentations in the middle. Did you know that cheese wafers also happens to be a derivation of a cheese straw product itself? There is an endless array of ways to utilize straws of cheese on the bridal shower buffet.

Cheese Straw Cheeses

The cheese used for preparing the cheese straw also comes in a variety of kinds- cheddar cheese being the most popular. Other types of cheese include blue cheese, parmesan cheese and white cheddar cheese. Basically everything aside from the strong mozzarella cheese which is used very economically just to flavor food (like caviar!).

Cheese Straw Recipes

Here we will talk about preparing two separate cheese straw dishes- the first being the plaited cheese straw made from cheddar cheese and which happens to be famous worldwide, especially in Europe, while the second is “ringed” blue cheese straw, a staple of the American South. Without much dilly dallying, let us get down to the wire.

Note:- Seasonings for all the cheese straw recipes are mentioned separately (after the procedure for the blue cheese thumbprint recipe so you may have to take a look at that section first before throwing yourself into the cooking and baking, especially if you want to spice up your cheese straw dishes).

We begin with:-

Cheddar Cheese Straw Recipe

This recipe is for the simple cheese straw baked from shredded cheddar cheese. Here is the step by step recipe for your convenience :-

Ingredients

Flour [Approximately 4 ounces (1 cup)] (Amount may vary proportionally depending on the quantity you are going for)
Cheddar cheese (3 ounces if it is pre shredded)
1 egg yolk
Butter (About two ounces)
Salt and pepper

Procedure

Note before starting the cheese straw preparation: If you are given a choice between pre shredded cheese and cheese needed to be shredded by one self, we strongly suggest you go for the latter. The reason for this being, freshly shredded cheese allows for more flexibility when it comes to twisting the cheese straw as opposed to the more rigid pre shredded cheese which may contain preservatives which affect the texture and malleability of the cheese.

Now on to the cooking:-

Start with placing three of the major ingredients- the flour, the shredded cheese, and the salt and pepper into an electrical mixer or blender and mix them together.

Next, add in the butter and the egg yolk and stir the entire mixture well. You may add in water if you feel the mixture is too thick. Take care not to dilute the mixture with too much water otherwise the resulting cheese straw will be incredibly soggy.

Slip on your cooking gloves and knead the mixture until smoothness is achieved.

If a little bit of flour is remaining is sprinkle it over a rolling board. Get out your batter and rub it out all over the board till it is less than a quarter inch thick.

You may start cutting out your cheese straws from the dough. Make sure that they are as uniform as possible.

Uniform Cheese Straws

To ensure the uniformity of every cheese straw, you may have to use a precise cutting knife to slice through the mixture. This gives you a very good sense of the shape and length of each straw and enables you to be more adept at cutting said shape and length from the dough.

Place the straws of cheese onto a baking sheet. To make sure that the straws attain a smooth crust and edges, line the baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.

Bake for approximately 20 to 30 minutes until the straws begin to sport a golden hue at around 180 °C.

Remove them from the oven, and let them cool properly. Serve on your finest china ware tray.

Ringed Blue Cheese Recipe / Blue Cheese Thumbprint Recipe

Next, we come to the ringed blue cheese recipe. It is so named because of the circular shape the straws are baked in with a slight hollow (indentation, to be precise) in between, giving it a filled “ring like” or “wreath like” appearance. The indentation in the middle of the circular blue cheese straw can be made using a small thimble, the thumb of the cook or a little penny (depending on the size of the blue cheese balls of course). Let us have a look at this quick and easy to make goodie!

Ingredients

6 oz all-purpose flour
4 oz blue cheese (crumpled)
2 oz butter (softened)

Procedure

First, place the crumpled blue cheese and butter into an appropriate mixer and set the speed to medium. Once you have attained a smooth mixture with a minimum amount of lumps, remove said mixture from the mixer.

Beat flour into the mixture.

Take the dough and make little balls out of it (each being a little less than an inch).

Chill them for a couple of hours.

Now place the balls on baking sheet placed on a microwave tray. Start making the “hollows” in each ball, either by thimble, thumb or penny.

Put the tray in the microwave and heat at around 180 degree Celsius until they attain a healthy looking golden hue. This may take up to 20 minutes.

Allow them to cool.

When cooled, you may place any condiment, preservative or candy of your choice in the hollow, preferably something that goes along with the theme of your bridal shower. Example, If you are having a Valentine's Day shower theme then you may place less than half a teaspoon of strawberry preserve or even a cherry fruit itself in the hollow.

Serve on your prettiest china ware cookie trays.

Cheese Straw Seasoning (Applicable for all recipes)

There are a number of spices you could use for flavoring the cheese straw of your desired shape and size. Your options include:-

Red onion jam
Salt
Pepper
Dried Tomato Paste
Grounded walnuts
Grounded red pepper
Dried mustard
Thyme\

Note: These seasonings should be added when the cheese and flour is being beaten together in a mixture, in order to give a smooth, uniform taste.

Bridal Shower Food Decorations

Yes, that is right, you may use your cheese straw dishes to make for edible, mouth watering bridal shower décor. Here are a few ideas:-

Cheese straw centerpiece

You may put in your tall cheese fingers along with your flowers in the vase occupying the center of the dining table. Guests sitting at the table may just break off chunks off the cheese fingers whenever they want dip for their food. Similarly, a cheese straw centerpiece may be added to the middle of a side table meant specifically for cheese based products.

Bridal Rapunzel

You may prepare a likeness of the bride to be, entirely with food products (similar to the vegetable or fruit man / woman). Here, if you are using a watermelon, pumpkin or even an apple, dip bowl (for a two-dimensional, horizontal figure) or chocolate truffle for the bride’s head, you may attach long, golden cheese straw strips to the head to make it look like toe length flowing hair right out of the fairy tale princess story Rapunze. You may use toothpicks to attach the dough to the fruits or veggies.

Cheese Straw Placeholder

You can prepare placeholders out of anything and everything and cheese straw dishes are no different. If you take a long cheese finger, you may write the name of the guest (at whose seat the cheese bun is kept near) in ketchup or mustard on the surface of the straw itself.

Similarly, you may use a toothpick flag (flag material made of cloth or paper and bearing the guest’s name) placed into the dent of the blue cheese imprint. (You may have to stick the toothpick into the dent before baking the ringed blue cheeses to avoid the little flags from coming off).

With that, we have come to the tail end of the cheese straw. (Last straw, perhaps?) Feel free to visit our pages on other bridal shower recipes.. all of which happen to be free from cheesy puns on cheese straws, we promise!