What better way to start July 4th than to make a batch of cheese bees for Thea? Usually they're for somebody else, but today she doesn't have to share. Charlie Dog thinks otherwise...
This is a recycled blog from June 2014 [I'm better looking now], when Kevin David Thomas and I did a cabaret at Cain Park called "The Tenor And The Tuner". I could always bribe Kevin with cheese bees, so I made him some and handed them to him during the performance. He said, "If you don't have enough for everybody, don't give them to me." Under the piano I had 4 double batches I'd made and we passed them out to the entire audience. People got grabby! But there were still plenty. People wanted the recipe, so I posted it on an old blog I had. Hope it inspires cheese beesery all over the place.
I’m not much of a cook, but my cheese bees are known around the world (OK, mostly Ohio). They are just cheese straws, a time-tested treat from the South. Originally I learned to make them from a video by Mark Bittman on the New York Times page (link here), and since then I’ve simplified the recipe and adapted it for food processor. You can make them in any shape, and you can vary the amount of cheese (Mr. Bittman adds parmesan, which makes a big difference in a good way). For anyone who cares, they are unleavened. I carry the recipe on my phone for emergencies.
INGREDIENTS:
8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick)
The better the cheese, the better the cheese bees. Try saying that fast three times. I use Cabot’s Seriously Sharp cheddar, maybe the best cheddar cheese out there, and unbelievably, WalMart carries it for $2.62.
Cube the cheese.
Grate the cheese in the food processor and dump it in a mixing bowl. This takes 5 seconds. I used to think I had to grate the cheese by hand and earn good cheese straws. I was dumb.
Put flour, salt, and cayenne in the (now empty) food processor. Pulse to mix. (At one point I started leaving the cayenne out, thinking people didn’t like the bite it added. Several friends staged an intervention.)
Add cubed butter to the flour mixture. Pulse until the consistency resembles coarse crumbs, and no more.
Dump the flour mixture on top of the cheese.
Wash your hands well (you did this before you started, right?), take off your wedding ring and put it somewhere where you will remember to put it back on. Mix the dough by hand until it clumps together in a ball. You will think it’s not going to happen, but then it suddenly does. It doesn’t take long. This step is very important. I used to do all the mixing in the food processor, but you have to leave the butter coarse and mix it by hand to get really crisp, sharp-tasting results.
I was making four batches that day for Cain Park.
This is the point where I preheat the oven to 400°, after making sure Thea isn’t storing pans in it.
Roll dough out to about 1/8 thick. Experiment with thickness, the results are fun to compare, and they’re all good. I roll it on my counter under waxed paper, which makes things easy.
Cut in whatever shapes you want. I have done 10′′ long squiggly strips, letters, shapes, and as Kevin mentioned, once recreated the “A Little Night Music” logo in cheese straw dough. I find that pie dough cutters do a great job. I often use a bee cookie cutter because my children like to say “cheese bees”.
Put cutout dough on a nonstick cookie sheet. Even if you don’t use nonstick, these have enough butter in them that you don’t have to grease the sheet, but I get best results with nonstick.
Bake for about 10 minutes. It may take longer. Really you bake them till they are golden brown and just on the verge of burning. The closer you get to that point, the better that good old almost-burnt-cheese flavor will be. I’ve done it often enough that I can usually do it by the smell in the kitchen. Take them off the sheet immediately and let them cool on racks.
And enjoy your cheese bees! Good luck keeping people from eating them before they’re cool. For a long time I had no idea how long they would keep, because certain unnamed people would gobble them up as fast as I made them. They’re great with lentil stew. They make a great gift to bring to a party or potluck or to ship to college kids or anyone. They’re part of the friendship between Kevin David Thomas and me, which is why we passed them out atCain Park last night. Did people enjoy them? Well, I took four batches, and we brought home empty containers. Have fun eating them!
BONUS!! When Kevin was in "A Little Night Music" on Broadway with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury and Elaine Stritch and Bernadette Peters, Stephen Sondheim gave each cast member a jigsaw puzzle with their initials cut into it. For Kevin's 30th birthday, I recreated Sondheim's puzzle in cheese straw dough. I hope he's eaten it by now.
