Get the Power of the Puff by Making Easy, Cheesy Ones at Home by Lisa Messinger on Creators.com

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Get the Power of the Puff by Making Easy, Cheesy Ones at Home

You probably have pulled together a dinner party. You undoubtedly pulled together a big family dinner or two. But have you ever pulled together a bag of homemade cheese puffs?

After munching perhaps millions of store-bought snack puffs over the years, I've only recently seen the potential of the puff and that homemade is worth the slight extra elbow grease.

Who is the man who showed me the light? Michael Season. Like any great chef, Season put his name on his best recipes. Only Season's most memorable creations are cheese puffs, potato chips and corn chips. He's president of Natural Snacks, LLC, an Illinois-based company that started with his roots as an organic farmer in the 1970s.

Season is like the Wolfgang Puck of cheese puffs. By adding large amounts of cheddar or white cheddar cheese, blue cheese, butter and buttermilk to his line of Michael Season's Ultimate Cheddar Cheese Puffs — which has won the American Tasting Institute's Gold Medal — and forbidding any monosodium glutamate (MSG), unnatural ingredients, artificial colorings or flavorings, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, he's created puffs that taste almost exactly like a big bite of the highest-quality cheese, with that added addictive crunch for which snack puffs are loved.

He's one of a small group who makes such select puffs, available at supermarket chains like Whole Foods Market and online at NaturalSnacks.com. Snack cheese puffs (often called cheese curls) first popped on the supermarket scene in the 1950s, but have a history dating back to the 1930s. A company developing corn-based feed for livestock added machinery to make it flake for better use. Accidentally, through the flaking of the materials and natural warming of the machines, a worker discovered the process that led to cheese puffs.

Convenience kept ensuing through the decades, with manufacturers not adding much real cheese and often including artificial ingredients and monosodium glutamate. Although such snacks are some of the most popular in the snack food brand category, Season saw a needed niche for a product piled deep with real cheese.

When not munching straight from the store-bought Season's bag, such dedication and high-quality ingredient selection inspired me to seek out recipes that would conjure up a similar smile.

Traditional homemade "cheese puffs" are usually French pastry-based goodies often prepared with mild Gruyere cheese. I found an offshoot of that below — it's much more reminiscent of our all-American snack favorites in that it instead uses extra-sharp cheddar cheese.

Splashes of cayenne pepper and minced scallions turn it even more gourmet.

The following puffs, though, are similar to feasting on select snack food brand-inspired ultra-cheesy puffs at home, since they are made from cornmeal. They are crunchy marbles bursting with two full cups of extra-cheddar cheese.

EXTRA-SHARP CHEDDAR CHEESE PUFFS

2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (see Note 1)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1 cup cornmeal and/or corn flour (see Note 2)

1/8 teaspoon salt

Yields about 6-dozen cheese puffs.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Soften cheese and work all ingredients together with clean hands. Roll into balls the size of marbles.

Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes; watch that they do not burn.

Note 1: One-quarter cup of white cheddar cheese can be used in place of 1/4 cup of extra-sharp cheddar cheese.

Note 2: All-purpose flour that has been sifted can be substituted if necessary, but the resulting marble-sized cheese puffs will not be as hard.

Note 3: These can be frozen in a freezer bag before baking for up to 2 months.

— Adapted from Recipezaar.com

SCALLION-CAYENNE CHEESE PUFFS

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

1 cup shredded extra-sharp cheddar

2 tablespoons minced scallions or chives

Yields about 4-dozen cheese puffs.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly coat 2 cookie sheets with vegetable cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup of water with the butter, oil, salt, and cayenne pepper. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the flour all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until the ingredients form a smooth paste.

Stir in 1 egg with a wooden spoon, until completely blended. Repeat with the remaining 3 eggs. Stir in the cheddar and chives.

Using a teaspoon, drop balls of batter onto the cookie sheets. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until the puffs are firm and well browned. Serve warm or at room temperature.

To keep for up to 2 days, cut a small slit in the side of each puff immediately after removal from the oven. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

— RealSimple.com

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "Cooks' Books" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.