Thursday 5 October 2017

My Little Chef - Cheese Straw Trees

 
As regular readers of the blog know, William is a budding and exceedingly ambitious chef and baker.
 
Although he cooks regularly here he also is in competition with himself to create, explore and make something more complicated and ultimately growing his skills. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing; in fact, as long as he doesn't get upset I am more than happy to push him if he is willing!
 
As many of you know, we attend church most weeks and enjoy the community aspect that it offers. Every year we celebrate a lovely Harvest festival service and we concentrate on sharing with each other, our church communities and with the local community. William, each year, has been keen to be creative and share his skills.

 
2 years ago William created a shortbread picture.

 
He made sure to use different colours and make it look like something that shows the meaning of harvest. At church we broke it in pieces and shared it amongst the congregation.

 
Last year William made bread and rolls and shaped them as a Cat and her kittens. The Cat was a Cheese and Onion loaf and the kittens were a cheese and dried tomatoes.
 
The church loved his efforts and we sliced the bread, added some butter and shared together.
 
This year took a lot of thought and William was convinced that he wanted to make an autumnal tree that was based around cheese straws but wasn't sure what to do. I, the guy with no real solutions, asked Facebook and some suggested how to do it. With an idea in mind William was ready to create!
 
So here is Williams Autumnal Harvest Cheese Straw Tree!
 
Ingredients
 
250g cheddar cheese, grated
100g butter, soft and cubed
 300g self raising flour, plus extra for dusting


 150 ml milk
(Times by 2 to create 2 lots of dough)
Resources
Scales
Baking Tray
Measuring Jug
Rolling Pin
Knife
Straight Edge/Ruler
 
Method
We started by preheating the oven at 180c and greasing the tins.
 
William started by carefully measuring the self raising flour, which he wanted to use, instead of plain to make it more crumbly texture at the end.
(He learnt about this when we were experimenting with different types of flour)

 
He then measured out the 100g of butter and placed it into the bowl with the flour.

 
Although the recipe had a suggested about of cheese to use, William decided to empty as much in as possible with his logic being "you can't have too much cheese" in to the bowl with the flour and butter. (He emptied the 300g bag)

 
Next, William mixed up the ingredients together with his hands and then made the mixture into breadcrumbs. He found it useful to get handfuls and rub his hands together but whatever works for you!
 
Once the ingredients were fully mixed he decided to measure out the milk.

 
He carefully and slowly added the milk to the breadcrumbs. He only poured a small amount of milk in at a time and with his hands started to mix into a ball.

 
He continued this until all of the dough had formed together. William then repeated this process to create 2 dough balls and then put them together; kneading the larger dough together.

 
 
He then used some flour to dust the surface and start to roll the dough out flat.
William always enjoys starting from the middle and pushing to dough out. He then rotates and repeats until the mixture is flat, thin and even. He did this on top of a cutting board so he could lift and transfer to the baking tray.
 

 
Using a baking tin he cut his rolled out dough into a square.

 
He then, with a plastic lid (the thickness he wanted for the trunk) ruler, methodically measured out and marked where he wanted to cut. 
 
William then cut lines down the dough to form the "branches and leaves", using the thickness of the top as his guide/ (They were about 3-4cm thick)

 
Carefully William placed the ends of each strip and started to twist them between his fingers and placed them upwards individually on the prepared tin. He did this upwards to create the effect of branches and leaves going up in a tree.
The bottom strips we found didn't really work so William cut them at the bottom and pushed them into the top to create a bushy tree top!
Normally Individual straws take between 15 - 20 minutes in the oven but we thought, although the same shape, that this may take longer and played it by ear.
William was keen to let me know what to look out for in the oven. He wanted them to rise and "inflate" as well as looking for them to be golden brown in colour. In fact, it took 40 minutes to bake, rise and go a golden colour. (I would keep an eye on it and play it how you feel fit)
Once cooked we took them out of the over and allowed them to cool.

The tree and the excessive cheese (although there is never too much) went a wonderful golden yellow and brown. A look that I though resembled the Autumnal look William was after.
William presented this to the church on Sunday and they loved it! At the end everyone went along and broke off a branch and a piece of the bark and shared with one another. I am so proud that he has, once again, taken on a challenge to exceed his hard work from previous years, kept a theme and style and done so with magnificent conclusion. To then see him proudly present it to the church and explain his reason for making it and sharing it made me proud to push against his social anxiety but to have a good understanding of the meaning of Harvest time.
So what do you think? Would you give these ago? By yourself or with your child?
 Let us know!

2 comments:

Plutoniumsox.com said...

This is brilliant! I agree that there's no such thing as too much cheese. William is so creative, does he get that talent from his mum as well as everything else?
Nat.x

Becster said...

Ahh fantastic job by William! He will be the next Jamie Oliver!