Making a granola crisp or cracker

[gfron1]

I want to make a sturdy but biteable little cracker made of granola. I've puffed my own rice and amaranth, and I want to add some toasted oats, small nut pieces and other stuff. The crisp will be used as part of a savory course, but I assumed it would be bound with honey, molasses and sugar in some ratio. I don't have much time to work through options so I'm asking here.

 

I'm assuming I'll need to cook the sugars to hardtack, but maybe not. And I'm assuming I can do any ratio of the sweeteners to get there, but maybe not. Thoughts anyone?

 

This cracker can NOT be soft like often happens with a granola crisp, but also can't be so hard that you can't bite it easily. 

[Martin Fisher]

FWIW, ground flax will bind quite well.

You wouldn't need much if any sweetener.

[gfron1]

that's a good thought @DiggingDogFarm. I hadn't considered going at it from that route.

[Kerry Beal]

I wonder if using the basic formula for the Issuni Graham Sable mentioned on eG recently might work. Essentially you grind your finished cookie into a powder, add egg, butter, sugar and flour and reform into a sable. So if you started with your granola, ground it up - added the necessary ingredients, then your various puffed stuff, chill, shape and bake. 

 

[kayb]

Psyllium husks?

 

I recently found a recipe for a nut-and-seed bread that depends on psyllium husks to bind it. I now possess some. Have never worked with them before. Found them in the nutritional supplements at the health food store.

 

[gfron1]

10 hours ago, kayb said:

Psyllium husks?

 

I recently found a recipe for a nut-and-seed bread that depends on psyllium husks to bind it. I now possess some. Have never worked with them before. Found them in the nutritional supplements at the health food store.

 

I have a bag. Haven't used them much, but I have them.

[MelissaH]

Doesn't psyllium husk have, er, pharmaceutical uses that might make you want to be careful about using or eating a lot of it?

[KennethT]

Rather than sugar, why not use isomalt as a primary ingredient in the binder?  It's not as sweet as sugar, but has similar structural properties.

 

El Bulli used to make a dish where they would make a crisp using puffed corn (a common street snack in Barcelona)... they would take a sheet of Obulato - which is a very thin Japanese edible paper made from potato starch and dust onto it a sugar powder made by melting together 50% isomalt, 25% glucose and 25% fondant and bringing to a light caramel.  Pour onto a silpat and cool, then blitz in a spice grinder to make the powder.   Anyway, you add a heavy dusting of the powder to the obulato which acts as a base (it dissolves immediately in the mouth so you don't even know it's there) and add the solid objects - then put in a hot oven for a few seconds to remelt the sugar mixture.  Once cooled you have a very delicate savory tuile.

 

I've done variations on this by adding spices to the sugar mixture - star anise, cinnamon, clove, but you could use anything....

[kayb]

1 hour ago, MelissaH said:

Doesn't psyllium husk have, er, pharmaceutical uses that might make you want to be careful about using or eating a lot of it?

 

The bread recipe calls for four tablespoons of the husks. The pharmaceutical use calls for two tablespoons stirred into a glass of juice. So unless you eat half the loaf at a sitting, you ought to be OK. I think.