My son is slightly addicted to those goldfish crackers. At not even two years old, every day around 5:00 he’ll go get a little bowl, stand at the kitchen counter below the cupboard with the crackers and complain. The smile on his face when I pull out the bag is priceless, so of course, I give in.
But, I am not a real fan of packaged food, and thought I’d tackle making my own crackers. Turns out it’s not hard, just a little laborious. Those crackers are tiny!
I didn’t have a goldfish cookie cutter, but did have all sorts of tiny leaf cookie cutters so thought I’d go with that. The cheese I had on hand was white and not orange, but hopefully it won’t make a difference to him.
I was a little alarmed by the amount of cheese used, but it just meant that the resulting cookies are very cheesy. And addictive. You could easily serve these to a bunch of hungry adults. And, they don’t really resemble the goldfish cookies at all. They are more like puffy little fluffs of cheesy love.
I adapted this recipe from a bunch of sources including Smitten Kitchen (wow hers look nicer than mine!), and Tasty Kitchen. I don’t own a food processor, so the following recipe is doing it by hand which ain’t that tough.
- 200g finely shredded strong cheddar cheese
- 60g butter
- 60g whole wheat flour
- 60g plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 3-4 tbsp water
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Put all ingredients except the water in a bowl.
- Using a pastry blender blend it all up until sandy. I ended up getting my hands in there to rub the butter and make sure it was in small bits.
- Add water in 1tbsp increments until the dough comes together
- Put the dough in a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate around 1hr
- When ready to cut out your crackers take half the dough ball and roll it out until it's around 3mm thick. You will probably need some flour to keep it from sticking.
- Using cookie cutters (or you could simply cut with a knife) transfer to a cookie sheet leaving about 2cm between cookies.
- Bake for around 15 minutes or until just brown.
- Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet until transferring them to a container.
Michelle Little
Writer & Photographer
So cool! I can understand why Bastien is addicted to these…
I LOVE that you made your own goldfish! This is fantastic!
Thanks! They don’t last long but are good while they are fresh!
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