Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Cheez-Its

Which cheese am I?

Maybe I'm white cheddar, perpetually has a theory.

Chris is original, liked everything

you liked before it was cool.

I feel like Andy's hot and spicy.

Post selfies from the back of his limo.

[pleasant music]

It's been a while since I've pulled my hair out

in one of these episodes.

But I'm getting there.

Hey everyone I'm Claire.

Today we are in the BA Test Kitchen,

and I am making gourmet Cheez-Its.

[percussive music]

I don't have like a close personal relationship

with Cheez-Its, but I do think that they are very good.

Is it possible they're not as good as I remember?

What I remember about Cheez-Its

and what I still think is really good is how tangy they are.

You're left with this mouth watering acidity

that makes you want to keep eating them.

I think that we could try to make our version

have more cheese flavor.

I kinda want to try the white cheddar.

Ooh, these are incredible.

So this is their Duoz line.

Regular Cheez-It and caramel popcorn in one bag, delicious.

The only real option here I think

is to make the original cheddar.

Now we want to analyze the Cheez-It on a micro level,

so I'm gonna get rid of all this stuff

and pull in the crackers so they can take a closer look.

Okay first I want to start by measuring it.

Looks like it's exactly one inch.

One, two, three, four.

So seven little grooves per side.

Then the other opposite sides only have four.

There are lots and lots of little air pockets

with layers of cracker in between,

and little, even tiny little micro air bubbles

on the surface.

I can tell that they're baked because there's a flat side.

There's no browning on it anywhere.

That might present a challenge

for the way that we're gonna bake them.

It might involve some kind of dehydration

to really get them to be dry all the way through.

My guess about Cheez-Its and how they're made

is that it's not that complicated.

It's a dough that's rolled out into sheets,

cut in two directions to make these squares,

and then baked.

If we really want to get those very crispy layers,

then you would maybe also use a technique

called lamination with butter to produce a texture

similar to the outside of a croissant

with lots of layers.

So that might be something to work into this recipe.

Gabriela.

Do you want to taste?

Sure.

[gasps]

Cheez-Its!

So you told me earlier this is your favorite snack.

It's-- One of your favorites.

One of my favorites.

I'm going.

They have like a toastiness, like a smokiness.

There's kind of like a toasted cheese.

It's almost like a little bit acrid.

Right off the bat, I was like the flavor can be improved.

You could actually make it more cheddar.

Obviously artificially colored.

That's not the color of--

I mean they said that orange cheddar

is artificially colored.

Maybe it's like annatto.

That would be fun.

Not paprika?

No 'cause I don't want it

to have a pepper flavor, you know?

Although like a tiny, tiny bit of cayenne

I think would be good.

The hole in the middle is like very,

I think that's the iconic thing about a Cheez-It.

My theory is that the hole in the center is to prevent

the cracker from puffing all the way, like doming.

Then the little sprinkling of salt on top,

how hard can it be to make a cracker?

Not hard at all.

Time for my favorite part, reading the ingredients.

Enriched flour parenthesis wheat flour, niacin,

thiamin mononitrate, close parenthesis.

Vegetable oil parenthesis soybean and palm oil

with TBHQ for freshness close parenthesis.

Cheese made with skim milk parenthesis whey protein,

salt, cheese culture, enzymes,

annatto extract color close parenthesis.

Contains 2% or less of salt, paprika, yeast,

paprika extract color, soy lecithin.

Annatto is a seed.

It does produce a very very bright yellow color.

I do think it's interesting that it does have

annatto extract color which I talked about,

and there is paprika and paprika extract color

which Molly mentioned.

So that helps explain the very orange color.

So now we're ready to go over to the computer

and start kind of the research phase.

Here's their website.

1986, Cheez-It reveals to the world their secret

of how they've been making their crackers so delicious.

It's all in the 100% real cheese.

That was the year I was born.

Yeah 1932, no 1986.

[Narrator] The dough into a hopper.

It's rolled into king-sized sheets that overlap.

It's a roller that punches out

the little ridged rectangle.

I never thought about it until now,

but it's like a ravioli cutter.

There's a tool the pasty chefs use

to cut strips of dough that are parallel

and it's this set of pastry wheels

on kind of an accordion style.

This I think is gonna be a faster way of cutting

a lot of Cheez-Its all at once.

The liquid in the dough comes from

like a dissolved yeast solution, rolled out,

folded over several times.

So they're punched out in the sheets, baked,

and then broken apart into the individual crackers.

So I did some research online for cracker recipes.

I have some ideas about how I'm gonna roll it out

and add that flaky texture.

So I'm actually really excited to start this process.

I took off my power blazer and put on my apron.

The apron means that it's time to start cooking.

My plan is to mix up the dough,

incorporate the butter,

cut, bake, dehydrate.

[percussive music]

So here's what I'm gonna do.

Gaby found some annatto seeds.

To extract the color from these,

I'm going to bloom it in some oil.

This will be our orange food dye.

I'm gonna start with putting together a dough

using the food processor.

Also adding some spices, maybe some paprika, cayenne,

add the cheese.

My bloomed yeast mixture, annatto oil,

and then I'm gonna speed this through the tube.

The color is looking good.

I think it could be more orange still.

I'm gonna add one more teaspoon of the oil

and maybe another tablespoon of water.

The overall consistency is nice.

It's not sticky.

I mean it's raw flour, which doesn't taste great.

Could've added a lot more cheese to it,

but I'm gonna carry on and just test out

the proofing and the forming.

So I have this idea for how to create even more flaky layers

and it involves a technique called lamination,

and I'm gonna use the food processor

to finely grate butter.

To incorporate these shreds of butter into the dough

as I'm rolling it so that it flattens

into these micro sheets of butter.

And in the oven, the water and the butter comes to a steam,

there's a sort of separation effect

and it creates a flaky texture.

Yeah. Oh.

You go until you get that nice kind of flaky effect?

That a Cheez-It has--

I think the flavor is not gonna be.

I already know it's not gonna be what I want it to be, yeah.

I love Cheez-Its, by the way.

You do?

I always get a little Cheez-Its when I fly.

[Claire] Oh yeah, the little bag?

It's a good little inflight movie kinda snack.

Uh-huh. You know?

Oh I feel awful after I fly.

That's why we gotta get first class tickets, one day.

You're on your way.

Yeah, that was more like you, Claire.

I've seen the numbers.

What?

I've seen the show, Claire.

Brad I've never gone further

than the Lower East Side for this show, for anything.

Anyway.

Anyway.

I'm gonna cut these Cheez-Its now.

Yeah how are you gonna do it?

Well, having fun kind of flipping the dough around.

It looks great.

I'm just gonna use the wheel here and a ruler.

This is fun.

I'm really excited to see the outcome.

Yeah but don't get too excited,

'cause I think this one's gonna taste bad.

I'm banking on the fact that we're gonna get

those wheel cutters, and I don't have to actually do this.

But I am gonna try and get an approximate shape.

I have the smallest round-tipped pastry tip I could find,

and it really looks like it kind of fits perfectly

like to the size of the little hole in the Cheez-It,

so I'm gonna use this to punch

a center hole out of each one.

I'm not gonna bother with those little notches in the sides

because I think it's a little premature.

I just want to get a sense of the texture and taste.

Sun's going down, I'm getting a little tired of this step.

I'm just gonna bake the tray and see what happens.

[percussive music]

Oh they did get a little brown, okay.

Not ideal.

They definitely paled a lot.

Like the color kind of bleached out.

These browned too much.

There's really good layer separation.

I mean this is the one I just bit into

but take a look at that.

It looks very similar.

The profile, side by side.

Very tasty.

I would serve these at a party.

So these shrunk almost a full eighth of an inch,

so I have to go up in size a little bit.

I actually am more encouraged by this initial test

than I thought I would be,

but I think I'm just gonna add more cheddar

and I would like to swap a little bit of the flour

for the powdered cheese to try to make them

as cheesy as possible.

And then go from there.

[percussive music]

I'm actually really excited to do a second round.

I feel pretty good about the changes

that I want to make.

Make them cheesier, work on the dimensions a little bit,

crimped edge, and of course that bright orange color.

So first let me get the annatto oil in the stove.

We're going for something ultra concentrated.

So I wanna use cake flour instead of all purpose

just to try to get something kind of light in texture.

Powdered cheese to try to get more of a cheddar flavor

into the cracker.

Six ounces of cheddar today.

So orange this time.

Can we look at the cutters?

All right.

I've never actually used one of these.

I've only seen videos of it.

Yeah.

So then you just go zzt.

Before I had a lot of shrinkage in the dough.

I cut it to an inch, and it was really

more like 3/4 of an inch when it came out of the oven.

So if I have 25% shrinkage,

then I want to set this to about 1 1/4 inches.

No, is that right?

Hold on Kevin, I have to do math again.

And it shrinks

25%, then it shrinks more than 1/4 inch.

So I need to do less than, what?

I'm just gonna get on my calculator.

Wait what, one, one and 1/3.

How many college degrees did that take?

So I wanna go to about 1 1/3 inches in between.

I have to figure out now first

what I'm gonna use to make

the little crimps around the edges.

We need something fork-like

but with thinner, closer together tines.

Cake testers would work.

[percussive music]

I need a wire cutter.

I'm gonna cut seven individual pieces.

Don't tell Gaby that I'm doing this.

I need a piece of cardboard.

Ah, so annoying.

My finger's stuck to it and there's so much glue.

[giggles]

[percussive music]

So there's my little four-pronged tool.

And my seven, and I think I'm ready finally

to move into the cutting phase.

I need someone to hold the parchment, Chris?

Christina, all right, I need your assist.

Can you hold this parchment paper?

Like that? Yeah, okay.

Because it was moving as I was trying to cut.

Is this sharp?

I'll try not to roll over your finger

if that's what you're asking.

I feel like you guys need to roll this

with dramatic opera music.

[dramatic opera music]

I don't know that I'm like secure.

What should I do, should I do like this?

[Claire laughs] Do you think?

I think we need a-- An impressive wingspan.

You do, but we need a second person.

Hey Kat.

Oh god.

Okay, ooh.

Thank you both. Oh great.

Okay so now one by one, punching the circle

out of the center and making my little marks on the sides.

[percussive music]

Thinking that while there's a little bit of moisture,

if I put the salt on it now then it'll stick

as it dries, so we'll see.

[percussive music]

It tastes like the cheese in Kraft mac and cheese.

Said another way, it's delicious.

It's actually like so cheesy.

They're a little salty.

I think we need to dial down the salt a bit,

especially because of that extra sprinkle on top.

They're still a bit thicker than the original,

and of course a major difference

is how much thicker they are.

It doesn't have this same

like extremely bright, vivid orange color.

They need to dry out more.

I want to leave these in the dehydrator

overnight to see what happens,

but definitely I need to roll them thinner

for the next version, and I need to

make them a little bit smaller.

[percussive music]

You can see that they've definitely

kind of raised around the sides,

but overall I think dimensions look better.

I want to let them hang out in this 200 degree oven

for a little bit, and then put 'em in the dehydrator

and let 'em go overnight.

It's a real return to form for Gourmet Makes.

The wire cutters, hot glue gun, the dehydrator,

but overall good size.

They're still a little bit thick.

The real achievement today was getting a cracker

that tastes intensely cheddary,

but really it's gonna be about construction and texture

for tomorrow on day three.

[percussive music]

All right it's Friday in the BA Test Kitchen,

which means just Molly's here.

I'm very curious to see

what's been happening in the dehydrator.

It's been over 24 hours.

The color hasn't suffered, I don't think.

They look pretty good.

I'm really hoping that there's a crisp

all the way through texture.

All right.

Mm.

So the dehydrator had the desired effect.

You can see the layers inside.

Go ahead and taste for flavor.

Let me know what you think.

These are really good.

They're a little bit firm.

These are delicious.

They taste good right?

How can you get them thinner?

What's the process?

I'm gonna do one fewer lamination

because I think there'll be more dramatic separation

and like fewer layers, which is good.

[percussive music]

Using the same dough recipe.

After I fold in those butter bits,

I'm gonna roll it out and fold it just one time.

[percussive music]

It looks interesting huh?

So today the dough is a little bit different.

There was some more cracking while it was rolling it out,

so you can see parts where the butter is peeking through.

That's not really good, and I'm not really sure

what the change was today 'cause we didn't

do anything different in the formula,

but just gonna go with it and see what happens.

[percussive music]

I'm not loving the surface texture

where the butter was present

and then it kind of melted in the oven

and vaporized a little bit,

so it left like these little voids.

They're a little floury

because I used a lot of flour to roll them out.

They are not at all crisp, so that's...

I don't think that this is the batch

that's gonna make our Cheez-Its.

I want to quickly put together another dough,

just do the exact same thing over again

to try to get just a more solid lamination.

[percussive music]

Basically it's an abject failure.

Very pebbled texture on the surface.

Well I'm mixing another batch of dough.

More elasticity and extensability,

less cracking, theoretically.

I'm gonna use one seamless layer of butter.

[percussive music]

This is so annoying.

It's something bad today.

Something bad is happening today.

It's really bad energy.

It's all messed up.

It looks so much different slash worse

than it did yesterday.

I don't know why.

Usually I at least have some idea what the problem is.

Look at that.

That's really bad.

Okay.

Just as a final test, it's kinda pointless

but I just wanna see what that dough is like

if I can even roll it out to a thickness

and then cut it and just bake it off.

I don't know, let's just, this seems pointless but.

So 15 minutes, come back and check it.

I was feeling good.

Now I feel terrible.

Brad's at the BAFTAS.

This is version two.

This is version three?

And version four.

Delaney, sorry.

How's it going Claire?

Not in a good place. Not in a good place?

[Claire] Brad's in London right now

and he flew business class?

Bastard. Yeah.

I blame you Brad, it's his fault.

Yeah where are you, Brad?

Where are you right now?

He'd probably make me feel worse.

I don't want to talk about it.

All right, see you later.

[percussive music]

I took a short break.

Okay but I'll look at the crackers that went in.

[laughs]

One of them looks great.

Look how good that one looks.

The rest of them are disasters.

I can't blame anyone and it's frustrating.

I blame, you know what, I blame Brad.

Oh for sure.

But it's weird because I did not change anything

between today and yesterday.

So now I'm pivoting on the dough.

I'm pulling out the yeast,

I'm switching back to all purpose flour.

Yeah, I'm going down on the amount of cheese.

I think that's doing a lot.

I think there's so many things in here

that aren't, that isn't flour.

They're very cheesy.

The flavor isn't the issue.

[Claire] Yeah I know.

[Claire] Yeah.

You're saying it's karma.

They're gonna fog the kitchen which is why

Gaby's covering everything in black garbage bags.

So I'm gonna get out of here and go have a drink.

Take my mind off of Cheez-Its.

And then put my mind back on Cheez-Its over the weekend,

trying to think about it, figure out

what's happening, what's going wrong,

and then come back and maybe,

you know what, maybe it needs

like a full 180 pivot like somewhere else.

Going the other direction.

I don't know.

Why are you guys not out of here?

Goodnight!

[percussive music]

It's day four, I'm sad to say.

Did not think this one was gonna take me to four days.

I'm gonna pivot and change the method a little bit,

and I wanna try a version that's not yeasted

because the yeast is really slowing us down,

and I wanna finish today.

I wanna do a technique that's closer to pie dough

where I'm going to add the butter into the food processor

after the cheese, and then

bring everything together with some water,

chill it, roll it out, bake it, see what happens.

[percussive music]

It definitely feels more wet.

[percussive music]

Oh god.

[percussive music]

I'm excited and a little nervous.

All right they look good.

They look nice and puffed.

I see some really nice little air bubbles,

so I'm pretty pleased,

and there's a little bit of browning on the bottom.

I'm going to immediately get this tray into the dehydrator

so they can fully dry out.

[percussive music]

They look great.

I'm very happy with how uniform they are.

The color looks nice, actually.

I'm very very happy with these.

Whoa.

Those looks like Cheez-Its.

Yeah, right?

They're very close. Ooh!

So crisp and light.

That's crispy.

And salty and the cheese flavor is nice, damn.

I feel like I did a good job.

So what I hear you saying is I nailed it.

Nailed it.

The size is super super close.

I mean there is maybe a couple millimeters difference,

and flavor the whole way through has been really good,

so I'm not even worried about that.

There's many more layers

and they're definitely finer in texture

in the homemade, yeah.

But overall, I'm pretty close.

Oh my god Claire!

I like how orange they are.

Yeah.

It's like the Cheez-It color.

Oh my god.

It's so-- Cheddary.

No but it's good salty.

Potato chip salty.

Right.

Then reveal how much salt you consume

and like give me water.

Yeah, I certainly did not anticipate

having that really frustrating day on Friday,

but I do think it made the final version better

than it would have been

if I had just kept going down that path.

So happy.

No regrets about the process.

I love the flavor.

Really great texture.

I think it went great.

[percussive music]

Here's how you make gourmet Cheez-It.

To make the annatto oil, combine 1/4 cup annatto seeds,

half cup vegetable oil,

and two teaspoons paprika in a small saucepan.

Bring to a gentle simmer and remove from heat.

Let cool and then strain.

To make the dough, pull seven ounces all purpose flour,

two ounces powdered cheddar, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder,

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt,

two tablespoons buttermilk powder,

1/4 teaspoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika,

1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika,

and a pinch of cayenne in the food processor.

Add four ounces finely diced sharp yellow cheddar

and four teaspoons annatto oil and pulse until cheddar

has almost disappeared into flour

and the mixture is an even orange hue.

Add 1/2 cup diced butter and pulse again

until butter pieces are pea-sized or smaller.

Transfer to a large bowl and slowly add

seven tablespoons water, tossing to combine.

Knead mixture gently to bring together into a dough

and wrap in plastic, pressing into a flat square.

Chill for at least an hour.

Roll out on a floured surface to an 1/8 inch thickness.

Cut dough into 1 1/4 inch squares.

Crimp all four sides using a custom made

hot glued comb thingy and use a small round pastry tip

to punch out the center hole.

Sprinkle with crushed flaky salt.

Bake at 300 Fahrenheit

until puffed and firm, but not brown, about 20 minutes.

Transfer to a dehydrator

and dry until crisp all the way through.

No, I do not think cheese gives you weird dreams.

I think melatonin gives you weird dreams.

Just from personal experience.

This is a personal fact about myself,

but really when I was younger and today

was really into Buffy,

and there was this whole episode

where it was like a whole dream sequence

and cheese popped up in like four,

in everyone's dreams there was like a weird cheese moment

that was never explained.

So I guess, but I never have weird dreams when I eat cheese.

You guys ever watch Buffy?

It's the best show ever.

But you know it's a great show.

Yeah. As long as you know that.

Yeah, I still have a crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar.