Cheez It Duoz
Homemade Cheez-Its have become a Beantown Baker household favorite since I first made them earlier this year. In this variation, the crackers are cheddar on one side, and chipotle on the other side of the cracker.
I was recently contacted by Cabot Cheese to see if I was interested in a sample. Without a minute of hesitation, I said yes. I fell in love with Cabot’s cheeses while living in New England. It’s a local company and their cheeses are lactose free! Double win for me!
After moving to Ohio, I’ve had a more difficult time finding Cabot cheeses. One of the local grocery stores does carry it, but it’s not the store I go to regularly. When the goodies arrived in the mail, Hubby instantly asked for his favorite snack: Homemade Cheez-Its. I was happy to oblige since I love the cheesy little crackers too.
This time, I wanted to mix things up a bit, so I decided to do two flavors in one. So I made a batch of my homemade cheez-its and mixed smoked chipotle into half of the dough.
After the dough had chilled, I rolled out each half separately, and then stacked one on top of the other to get a two-toned-two-sided cracker. These Cheez It Duoz would be perfect to make for game day munching. Either use the original version, the chipotle version, or combine them to make these duoz!
It was a lot of fun taking one of my favorite recipes of the year and mixing it up a bit. Thanks Cabot for the cheese! We’ve been enjoying it on sandwiches, with crackers, and obviously in crackers as well!
Two Years Ago: BLTs with Homemade Mayo
Three Years Ago: Cuban Black Beans in the Crockpot
Four Years Ago: Lemon Blueberry Ice Cream Bars
Three Years Ago: Baja Fish Tacos
Six Years Ago: Spinach Balls and Cookies and Cream Cupcakes – Take 2
Cheez It Duox
Homemade Cheez-Its have become a Beantown Baker household favorite since I first made them earlier this year. In this variation, the crackers are cheddar on one side, and chipotle on the other side of the cracker.
Ingredients:
8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
3 Tbsp butter, softened
1 Tbsp vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour
2 Tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp ground chipotle
Course sea salt for sprinkling
Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine cheese, butter, shortening and salt on medium-high speed. Reduce speed to medium, slowly add flour and water.
Continue mixing until dough is smooth.
Divide dough into two. Add half of the dough back to the mixer and add ground chipotle. Mix until completely combined.
Create a disc with each half of the dough and wrap in plastic. Chill for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
Roll each disc of dough out a little bit. Then place one piece of dough on top of the other and roll to 1/8" thickness.
Using a ruler as a guide, cut long 1.5" horizontal strips. Rotate ruler to slice vertically, creating 1.5"x1.5" squares. Carefully transfer individual squares to prepared baking sheet. Repeat process with remaining dough.
Using a toothpick or cake tester (I used a straw), create holes in the center of each square.
Sprinkle with course salt. Sprinkle with pepper if using.
Bake for 10-15 minutes. I removed mine at 12 minutes. The time will depend on the thickness of your squares as well as the crispness you prefer. Watch your oven closely from 10 minutes on.
Best eaten the same day. Store remainder in an airtight container.
Recipe adapted from Beantown Baker
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Instant kill for salmonella is 160 degrees so please be safe and heat your egg whites to that temp. It only takes a couple more minutes to be safe. I am shocked that epicurious printed this recipe at only 140.
Almost all swiss meringue buttercream call for it to be heated to 140. Unlike the yolks, the whites have a Ph level that is too high to sustain salmonella. I am certified for food safety/handling.
Dear Terry-
Educate yourself before giving advice. Eggs whites beaten with sugar are denatured by the sugar, making them perfectly safe to eat. There is no need to heat them except where the recipe calls for it. Stop being an online fear monger.
Source: Any high school chemistry class
Hi,
I’m very curious about SMBC and would like to try it. Do you think it will work with a hand mixer? Kindly advise. Thank you. 🙂
beantownbaker — June 10th, 2013 @ 1:04 pm
I have never used a hand mixer to make it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Let me know how it turns out if you do try it.
Jen – have you ever tried a cream cheese Swiss meringue frosting? Other recipes seem similar to this, although the best looking ones I saw in a quick search were in metric units (grams), which seemed confusing. They seem to follow a similar procedure, but adding chunks of cream cheese after the butter is fully incorporated. Considering giving this recipe a whirl (so to speak!) by substituting Hal the butter w/ cream cheese, but was curious whether you thought that nigh work. Thanks.
beantownbaker — June 16th, 2013 @ 1:01 pm
I have never heard of cream cheese SMBC. But I love both frostings, so a combination of the two sounds devine. I think your approach could work. Definitely let me know how it turns out!
I tried your Swiss meringue buttercream today. It was amazing! I had no problem with it at all, except that I didn’t have a candy thermometer. (Oops!) However, I did use a meat thermometer, to get an estimate. I heated the egg-sugar mixture until it was hot to the touch, and there was no sugar crystals when I rubbed my two fingers together. It turned out fine. I beat the egg whites until it was ribbon-like. So yummy! I’m about to frost some vanilla cupcakes with it.
beantownbaker — June 25th, 2013 @ 5:38 pm
So glad you didn’t have any problems with this recipe!
I want to frost the cake well before the party. Should I store the frosted cake in the fridge? Will it hold up overnight? Thanks in advance for your insight!
beantownbaker — August 22nd, 2013 @ 2:38 pm
I would store it in the fridge overnight, then let it come to room temperature for about an hour before serving. This frosting gets a little too firm in the fridge for me, so I always let it come to room temp before eating.
I tried your SMBC with a hand mixer.. and it turned out great. However I only put half of the butter as to what the recipe calls due to lack of butter at home.. It still tasted buttery though and still yummy. anyways thanks for this. Will make this for sure next time!
beantownbaker — November 24th, 2013 @ 5:54 pm
Glad to hear this worked out for you.
I just found this post and gave it a try. I wondered, do you use this only as a frosting to cup cakes or would you also use it as a substitute for ganache and does it set up under fondant. TIA
beantownbaker — February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:45 pm
I haven’t used it under fondant. If you do try it, let me know how it goes.
Hi:
Wondering if it work if I don’t use the paddle, (which I don’t have one) my mixer only comes with wire whip? Do you have any idea or suggestion on how can I give a grey/silver colour to the buttercream?
Thanks.
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:52 pm
I don’t see why it wouldn’t work… For the coloring, I’d get some gel food coloring for the frosting. Hope it goes well for you!
Tried this recipe for the first time a few days ago, I was so sick of gloppy oversweet and gritty “American” style buttercream and needed a change. This recipe was very easy to follow, I also did not have a candy thermometer, but the first time I made it just using the sight and touch method, worked flawlessly, the second time I made it, just yesterday I used an IR non-contact thermometer and it worked out just as well. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this recipe, it tastes delicious and is extremely user friendly. I have received so many compliments on it. Thank you so much for sharing!
beantownbaker — September 2nd, 2014 @ 7:02 pm
So glad you enjoyed this recipe. I agree, American buttercream can just be too sweet. I love making this Swiss meringue buttercream.
Hi! I started using SMBC recently so have made it only 5 times. The first two times it worked like a charm. The other 3 times it was a flop. I live at 5500′ feet so in order to get the egg whites and sugar to 170 degrees F, I cooked it for about 15 mins until the egg whites were sticking to the side of the bowl. Could this be the reason the egg whites didn’t double?
Would really appreciate some help in ‘conquering’ this problem!!
Thanks!
This really looks lovely!
Can i color or add tint to this? Which should I use, oil based food color, gel, or will any food color do? I’d love to try this! Thank ahead 😀
can you double this if you were doing a bigger cake or more cupcakes??