Homemade Crackers

[sabg]

what a conincidence...i just got mark bitmans book (vegetarian)for the holiday and was reading all about making crackers last night...they don't seem at all difficult (sure) i am going to try over the long weekend and if i can figure out how to post pics i will certainly include them....it's a great book

[sugarseattle]

I usually make Martha's yeasted parmesan rosemary cracker with the pasta maker, but it's a lot of work and I have to work on the dinner table because my pasta maker doesn't clamp onto my counter so it's a little hard with a weird work space.

One of the things that's cool is that if I get tired of making crackers with the dough, I can just make some rolls because it's basically bread.

[purplechick]

I've been meaning to bake crackers for ages. Most of the commercial ones out there have hydrogenated oils and sugar and other stuff I don't need in them. We did find one brand that only had what I would put in it, but boy are they expensive!

I found a bunch of recipes in the Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham. She's got White Crackers, Graham Crackers, Nut Fruit Crackers (they have raisins and almonds in them), Oatmeal Crackers, Mexican Crackers (made with cornmeal, chili powder and cumin), Short Aniseed Crackers, Walnut Crackers, Soda Crackers, Flatbrod, Cream Crackers, Whole-Wheat Peanut Butter Crackers, Water Biscuits, Shredded-Wheat Olive Oil Crackers, and Teething Biscuits for Babies.

I'd love to see pictures and hear about other people's experiences trying to make crackers.

[Emily_R]

Hey -- has anyone tried the parmesan cream crackers that were just posted in the NY Times recently? They looked delicious!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/dining/0...xprod=permalink

Meanwhile, my favorite crackers are from fine cooking, a seeded cracker recipe. It is referenced I think on the "cooking with Fine Cooking" thread that is somewhere here, and is fantastic.

[pastrygirl]

Here are a few of my current favorites:

Sourdough crackers - don't recall where I got this

1 c sourdough starter

1/4 c olive oil

about 1/2 c AP flour (depending on how stiff your starter is)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

Combine to make a stiff dough, rest at least 15 minutes, roll thin, transfer dough to a sheet pan, brush with more olive oil and sprinkle with salt, prick all over with a fork and cut shapes, bake @ 350F until golden brown. They do puff up a little from bubbles in the dough, but they are nice and crisp and good flavor. Keep about a week.

Sesame Soy Crackers - a bastardization of a Charlie Trotter recipe - super easy, thin and fragile

this is the 'batter' type recipe I mentioned upthread, I tried it and liked it, even made a gluten free version with rice and corn flours. The original uses all wine and paprika (no sesame/soy), but I wanted a few different versions, and I get yelled at if I use too much expensive imported wine

135 g AP flour (1 cup)

1/2 tsp black pepper

40 g (about 2 TB + 2 tsp) butter, melted

2 TB soy sauce

1/4 c white wine

1/4 c water

1 TB black sesame seeds

2 TB white sesame seeds

Mix flour and pepper. Whisk wet ingredients, then stir into dry. Batter will be a little thin, thinner than tuile paste, should be easily spreadable. Add water or wine if needed. Oil two half sheet pans generously, then spread the batter in a thin even layer - small offset icing spatula is good for this. Sprinkle with mixed sesame seeds and bake at 350F until golden. Sometimes they stick to the pan, but when they don't they are really nice and light, suitable for inhaling. These don't keep well.

Multigrain Crackers

150 g AP flour (about 1 c + 1 TB)

50 g buckwheat flour (scant 1/3 c)

50 g rye flour (scant 1/3 c)

1 TB black onion seed

1-1/2 tsp cumin seed

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

80 g cold butter (3 oz/6TB)

1/2 c yogurt or buttermilk

Mix dry, cut in butter until crumbly, add yogurt to make the dough, chill before rolling. Roll dough, brush with olive oil & sprinkle with salt, cut shapes, bake at 325F until golden. Keep about a week. Good with cheese, if you don't have black onion seed I'm sure you could substitute something else or just leave it out.

Enjoy!

Andrea

Edited February 11, 2009 by pastrygirl (log)

[LizD518]

There is a type of seeded flatbread cracker that my chef at work serves. They come in a foodservice-sized case and I haven't seen anything in stores that look like what I want. Basically they are a flat, crispy, fairly neutral-flavored cracker that is not flakey and doesn't indicate yeast (to me at least). The topping is much like what you find on an "everything" bagel (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, toasted onion, toasted garlic, salt). Does anyone have a recipe for something like this?

[JAZ]

LizD,

Does this recipe look like what you want? It's from Fine Cooking magazine, and there's some discussion of them here.

I made a small batch of them yesterday, and my only problem was getting the seeds to stay on the crackers. Today I made another batch with toasted sesame seeds mixed into the dough and I'm much happier with them.

[Rebecca263]

Substituting chick pea flour for 1/2 of the wheat flour in a basic cracker recipe makes for a really delicious cracker!

[FauxPas]

I love Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crisps but the price, not so much! 

 

I think it's about time I tried making some. I found a recipe at the kitchn. And Anna N suggested this one.

 

Anyone else made these or similar crisps/crackers? 

[Anna N]

If you look on the gluten free baking topic Franci posted a link to some crackers that she made. I tried them also and found them to be quite addictive. Let me see if I can find the link before I run out of edit time.

Edited to add the link that Franci gave in the gluten free baking topic:

http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2014/07/the-life-changing-crackers/

Edited June 19, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[FauxPas]

Thanks, Anna! I will check that one out, also. 

[kayb]

Bumping up this topic because it's the closest one I can find to the question I want to ask.

 

I want to bake some crackers or savory biscuits that (a) package well; (b) retain freshness long enough to be baked in advance and then used in gift bags or party trays, and © are sturdy enough to stand up to a substantial spread. I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cracker recipes a quick browse of the web brings, and most recipes don't speak to the storage issue. I tried blue cheese wafers, a sort of shortbread, and found them too crumbly for my purposes.

 

Any ideas out there?

[Anna N]

Bumping up this topic because it's the closest one I can find to the question I want to ask.

 

I want to bake some crackers or savory biscuits that (a) package well; (b) retain freshness long enough to be baked in advance and then used in gift bags or party trays, and © are sturdy enough to stand up to a substantial spread. I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cracker recipes a quick browse of the web brings, and most recipes don't speak to the storage issue. I tried blue cheese wafers, a sort of shortbread, and found them too crumbly for my purposes.

 

Any ideas out there?

While Kerry Beal and I were up north on the island she made the lost map crackers from Nancy Drew ( Google should find you the recipe). They stayed remarkably fresh in a zipper bag for I think about two weeks. They may or may not be what you have in mind but they are surely addictive.

[kayb]

Ah. Thank you. I thought I had saved that when you (or Kerry) posted it in the Manitoulin topic, but I had not -- Googling failed me, but I went back and scanned Manitoulin until I found it! Thanks!

 

Still open for other suggestions. Would like to include a variety.

 

 

 

[Anna N]

Ah. Thank you. I thought I had saved that when you (or Kerry) posted it in the Manitoulin topic, but I had not -- Googling failed me, but I went back and scanned Manitoulin until I found it! Thanks!

 

Still open for other suggestions. Would like to include a variety.

How about a clone of rain coast crisps?

click

[Smithy]

Bumping up this topic because it's the closest one I can find to the question I want to ask.

 

I want to bake some crackers or savory biscuits that (a) package well; (b) retain freshness long enough to be baked in advance and then used in gift bags or party trays, and © are sturdy enough to stand up to a substantial spread. I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cracker recipes a quick browse of the web brings, and most recipes don't speak to the storage issue. I tried blue cheese wafers, a sort of shortbread, and found them too crumbly for my purposes.

 

Any ideas out there?

What about Armenian-style crackers with sesame seeds? Think Ak-Mak. I've had excellent success with the recipe from Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking. It's dead easy: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, yeast, olive oil, and sesame seeds. The seasonings can be adjusted. I haven't been able to find the recipe posted on the web, but if it sounds appealing PM me. I think they hold well; we usually eat them too quickly to be sure.

[Anna N]

What about Armenian-style crackers with sesame seeds? Think Ak-Mak. I've had excellent success with the recipe from Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking. It's dead easy: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, yeast, olive oil, and sesame seeds. The seasonings can be adjusted. I haven't been able to find the recipe posted on the web, but if it sounds appealing PM me. I think they hold well; we usually eat them too quickly to be sure.

Smithy,

I love Ak-Mak crackers but can only get them very occasionally when we go to Buffalo. Would it be too much trouble to ask if you could paraphrase the recipe?

[Smithy]

Smithy,

I love Ak-Mak crackers but can only get them very occasionally when we go to Buffalo. Would it be too much trouble to ask if you could paraphrase the recipe?

Here are my adjustments to the recipe, based on what has worked best in our trailer oven. I'll add notes about what was adjusted at the end.

Armenian-Style Crackers with Sesame

from Alice's Kitchen: My Grandmother Dalal & Mother Alice's Traditional Lebanese Cooking by Linda Dalal Sawaya

Makes about 6 dozen crackers cut into 1" x 4" strips.

1 cup + 1 Tbsp lukewarm water

1 Tbsp yeast

1 tsp salt

5 Tbsp olive oil

3-1/4 cups flour - I used half whole wheat and half all-purpose

1/2 cup sesame seeds

Use a medium-sized mixing bowl. Dissolve yeast in water, proof for 5 minutes. Add olive oil. Mix in the salt, flour and sesame seeds, and blend well until it's smooth. (She says to do the mixing with your hands; I can't remember whether I start with a stiff spatula; I do finish by kneading on the counter.)

Divide the dough into 8 evenly-sized balls; roll them in flour and put them on a tray in a warm place, covered, to rise until they've doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

One at a time with each ball, do the following (keep the rest covered - this part is a bit like working with pita dough):

- Roll each ball of dough out as thinly as possible with a rolling pin.

- Transfer it to baking parchment on a baking sheet.

- Cut it with a knife or pizza wheel into the size cracker you want.

- Perforate the crackers with a fork. (Perforations are crucial to keep the crackers from puffing up too much in the oven.)

- Use a squirt bottle with water to spritz the dough, then place the baking sheet on bottom oven rack for 10 minutes until slightly browned on bottom.

- Squirt the dough again with water and move to top rack for 10 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. It works out to more like 8 minutes top and bottom in my small oven. You have to watch the coloring.

While the first ball's worth of crackers is in the oven, you can go to work rolling out the next batch.

Cool the crackers on a rack. If you're going to store them in an airtight container, make sure they're completely cool before storing.

My proportions above are for a cracker that's half whole wheat and half all-purpose (white) flour. Hers uses 2 parts white flour to 1 part whole wheat; consequently her recipe uses slightly less water and oil - about a tablespoon less in each case. She notes that seasonings are easily adjustable, and this makes a great springboard for other cracker styles.

I can't say enough nice things about this book. It started out as a family cookbook, complete with photos and snippets of her immigrant family's history, but the recipes work and the artwork and stories are charming. My admiration increased after I went to the trouble of putting together a family history book of my own one Christmas. I think she's working on a 4th edition now; mine is the 3rd.

[Anna N]

Wow I did put you to a lot of work! Have you attempted freezing the dough? Six dozen crackers is a bit over-the-top for a solo household. I might attempt just halving the recipe and see how that goes. Thank you so very much for taking the trouble.

Edited to replace didn't with did in that first sentence. Rather glad I caught that!

Edited August 28, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[kayb]

Thank you, Anna N and Smithy! I've saved both of these, along with the Missing Map cheese wafers, and will give them all a try between now and time for Christmas goodies!

 

As it stands now, contents of the baskets will be a jar of bacon jam, a jar of tomato chutney, a pot of chicken liver pate, and a pot of smoked salmon spread; some crackers, and some candies (toffee and pralines). That should keep 'em all happy. I'd prefer to replace the pate and salmon spread with something that would be shelf-stable, but, oh, well.

 

K.

[Smithy]

Anna N, I haven't tried freezing the dough but I think I did halve the recipe with good results. kayb, I think if I were the recipient I'd be very pleased to get smoked salmon spread and chicken liver pate, shelf-stable or not. Those sound like great Christmas baskets!

It wasn't too much trouble to paraphrase that recipe, and reminds me that it's been a while since I made the crackers: got off into bread-baking, and kinda forgot about making my own crackers. Please report back on your results and any adjustments.

[Anna N]

Here you go. Hard to imagine anything could be easier.

Of course I had to veer off course. The first batch took such a long time to cook that I questioned the need for the spritzing with water. So the second batch I skipped this step. They certainly baked faster but curled. The third bunch which were already on their first cooking on the lower shelf I spritzed only once (before moving them to the top shelf). Seemed to be a good compromise.

These are very plain crackers making them perfect when you don't want the flavour of the cracker to interfere with the flavour of the topping. Thanks very much, Smithy.

[Okanagancook]

Thank you so much! Those look fantastic and I love crackers. I am on it tomorrow.

[MelissaH]

Anna, do you think a pasta machine might be an appropriate way to roll this dough very thin?

[Anna N]

Anna, do you think a pasta machine might be an appropriate way to roll this dough very thin?

I'm betting it would work like a charm. Wish I had thought of that.