First, I have to say I am in love with my new Kitchen Aid. Wow, to think I have been mixing by hand all this time. Apparently some good deals can be had on refurbished models on Amazon. Check it out if you have been lusting after one. My local flour miller was out of graham flour so we will have to save the cashew butter graham until next week. This week I bring you olive oil crackers. I based this recipe on a few different ones I found researching books and the web. The formula is pretty flexible but in my tests I found the type of flour used did make the baking time vary but more on that later. Olive oil and flax are a good source of good fats with flax bringing omega 3 to the party.
A word on flour and oil for this recipe. I used spelt, semolina, millet, and brown rice flour in various combination. I was attempting to find a good balance of texture, protein and nutrition. You could make these crackers entirely with whole wheat flour if you chose to. You could also use a starch like tapioca or almond flour if you are trying to go gluten free. The millet flour contains no gluten. You can find all of these at your local Whole Foods or co-op or at most megamarts. The oil flavor really does come through so use good oil. This is a good time to bust out a flavored oil you like as well. I used both good olive oil and a blood orange infused avocado oil in my tests.
A word on this whole recent surge in gluten free. If you are worried about being gluten intollerant, do not diagnose yourself, go and see a medical professional. Sorry, it's a bit of a rant, every celeb these days is magically gluten intolerant, its the new carb free it seems. Nutrition on these is ball park given the size you choose to cut your crackers and what type of flour you choose to use. It works out to be 1g of protein per cracker with 40 calories for a 10g cracker.
You will need:
1 c spelt flour
1/2 c millet flour
1/2 c semolina
1/4 c flax meal
1 T salt
1/4 c warm water
2 T olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
Preheat oven to 450
Mix flax and warm water together and let stand for at least 15 minutes. It will look kind of like peanut butter when it is ready. You can increase the amount of flax up to 1/2 cup by adding the additional flax meal to the dry ingredients. Once the flax has hydrated add your flours and salt and mix to combine. Add all the wet ingredients and mix until the dough begins to look like gravel. Need together to form a ball in the bowl and cover with a barely damp towel for 20 minutes to allow the ingredients to hydrate. If your dough is not coming together add more water 1/2 tablespoon at a time. If it is too sticky add more of your main flour.
Its cracker making time. Divide the dough into thirds. The easiest way to do this is to use a silicone baking mat, if you don't have one you can use parchment paper or plastic wrap. Place your dough on the mat or parchment and dust your your rolling pin with semolina. If you are using parchment paper place a second piece of paper on top of your dough to prevent sticking and omit flouring your pin. Work the dough until it is at least 1/8 inch in thickness. What this works out to is work the dough until you think it is thin enough then roll over it a few more times. See the photo notes for details. At this point you can use a cutter and make cute shaps or simly randomly break your dough up and place on one of the pieces of parchment and bake. The jury is out on whether docking these crackers makes a lick of difference. I think it improves texture by keeping the cracker flat, tasters didn't notice.
Bake your crackers for 10 minutes in the middle rack of your oven at 450. I have a convection oven so I lowered my temp to 400. Ovens vary, so check after 8 minutes as your mileage may vary. Crackers are done when they are golden and crispy.
In batch two I used semolina as my main flour and augmented with brown rice and millet flour. As an oil I used a blood orange infused avacado oil. I used a smoked salt for half of the salt content. These changes resulted in a cracker that was more crisp than the first version and cooked more quickly, in my oven it was only 8 minutes.
You can add seeds as I did in batch one or add whatever kind of flavoring you might like, like tandori spice or garlic.
Preliminary tasters said that batch one was a good basic cracker but they really liked the orange flavor of batch two. They would have also like more salt, smoked or otherwise on top of the cracker.
Photo Notes:
Silicone mat and rolling pin
Work the dough in thirds
Parchment meets dough
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