Cheese Straws

I've only made these once with D's mom's help. I am not used to making pastry and needed some guidance, it's not easy to understand from a recipe if you've never done it before. At D's parent's house, the cheese straws usually come out at Christmas time and they are EXPENSIVE! So I tried making them. They aren't that hard and a lot cheaper to make rather than buy. I would try spicing these up more next time with either jalapenos in the mixture or more cayenne pepper or sprinkling them with paprika. Oh, and I never said these were healthy!

14 tbsp butter. room temperature
3 cups sharp cheddar cheese
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, plus some for rolling
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

*Apparently the trick to pastry is incorporate the flour as quickly as possible into the butter. *

Put the butter in a bowl and cut to pieces using a knife. Quickly work the flour, cheese, Worcestershire, salt, and cayenne pepper into the butter by rubbing the mixture between your thumbs, middle and ring fingers, using only fingertips and being as gentle as possible. Lift it up high while doing this and let the mixture fall back into the bowl to incorporate air. Do this long enough to make the mixture crumbly with a few odd lumps here and there. Chill mixture for at least an hour.

Roll small amounts of dough into a long tube about the width of a straw and cut into desired lengths. Gently twist. Arrange on ungreased baking sheets and bake at 300F for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned.