Homemade Crackers

I’ve been on a homemade cracker kick lately. Mostly because I am a bit of a cracker snob, and I like crackers that are packed with delightfully nutritious ingredients, but those crackers are just super-expensive. And making crackers really isn’t too difficult.

The last time I hosted our documentary group, I decided to make a few different types of homemade crackers. Here they are:

Okay, the little sticks on the top actually aren’t healthful: these spicy cheese cocktail biscuits are a white flour-butter-cheese concoction, but they are reliably delicious, and I wanted a sure thing. I’ve shared them before and they are so fantastic that I love to make them, but I only make a batch when I know I can share them, because left to my own devices I will eat them all.

Then, continuing clockwise, the little circles are extremely simple No Roll Almond Flour Crackers. This was my first time trying to make them, and they were a teensy bit too crumbly for my tastes, plus, for me, they were a little bit too basic. One of my guests really liked them. I think almond flour is an excellent base for crackers, but these made me want to try variations with a few more spices.

And finally, on the left, these are Healthy Seeded Crackers. They have a chickpea flour base that gives them a bit of a papadam vibe, which I like. I’m also a big fan of the nutritional yeast flavor — if you’re not a nutritional yeast person already, they give a bit of a cheesy tang that’s a welcome addition to the, umm, flavor profile. I don’t really consider myself to be enough of a cook to go throwing around the term “flavor profile,” but that was clearly the way to end that sentence, so forgive the pretension. I did struggle a little bit with the dough sticking to the parchment paper the first time, and now I add a thin coating of olive oil to the parchment paper, which makes it all a little easier to handle. For these crackers, I’d put a bunch into a little cracker basket for documentary night, and then when someone heard I had more, they specifically asked for a refill, so I was not the only one who liked them! Oh, and Cute W likes them, too.

For my next cracker adventure, I thought that I’d try to use up some of the flax seed and flax seed meal that’s in my pantry. My recipe attempt with flax seed meal was such a dismal failure that I’m not sharing the recipe because I don’t want someone to see the link back just to read that I hated those crackers. After consulting with a friend, maybe the ground flax seed was spoiled? She said it goes rancid very quickly. So perhaps I didn’t do the recipe justice. But for me, they had absolutely zero redeeming qualities, except that they looked very much like actual crackers you’d buy at a store instead of, like, craft projects, like these others do. But they tasted so bad that I spat out my taster cracker and threw them in the trash instead of taking them to the Free Fridge.

However, both Cute W and I liked these Easy Flax Seed Crackers.

I was halfway through making the recipe when I realized that I had zero pumpkin seeds, so I subbed in the same amount of chopped walnuts. I also added more salt than the recipe (like, a lot more, maybe four times the amount) and I also included a couple of pinches of cayenne and a 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder. These were tasty! I like using the flax seeds and water to bind everything together: if you’ve never cooked with flax seeds, they have fairly magical properties when wet. Next time I’ll be a bit more careful to roll them out as evenly as possible to make them a more uniform crispiness.

And finally, I put together my own homemade recipe, which are on the left (along with another batch of the Healthy Seeded Crackers on the right). Basically I just put together my favorite ingredients from the other crackers and followed the basic roll-it-thin, bake-it-gently model.

Here’s my recipe for these.

Katie’s homemade crackers

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup almond flour
• 1/3 cup chickpea flour
• 1/3 cup flax seeds
• ¼ cup hemp seeds
• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
• 2 T nutritional yeast
• ½ t garlic powder
• ½ t onion powder
• ½ t salt to mix in + ½ t coarse salt as final topping
• 2 T olive oil
• ½ cup warm water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all dry ingredients, then add oil and water.
3. Fully combine and let rest for 5 minutes while you prepare two pieces of parchment paper with a very thin coat of oil.
4. Put mixture on oiled parchment paper, cover with other paper oiled side down, press and then roll with a rolling pin until it’s about ¼ inch thick and as uniform as possible.
5. Gently remove top paper and place on baking sheet. Put in oven and bake for 15 minutes.
6. Remove and cut into cracker pieces with a pizza roller, knife, or spatula end. Separate and flip pieces, then return to oven.
7. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes more, keeping an eye on the crackers. They’re done when they feel fully dry and start to look golden brown.
8. Remove and put on a cooling rack. They’ll get a bit harder. Make sure they’re fully cooled before you seal them up.

I’d make these again, but I think that next time I might even tweak it to 1/4 cup chickpea flour and 3/4 cup almond flour — that chickpea flour flavor really dominates! But I thought that they were tasty, and they’re great with guacamole, which is, of course, packed with the good fats that — ahem! — a woman of my age is supposed to consume in great quantities. Another great accompaniment to Ridiculously Healthful Crackers is to make an onion dip by starting with cottage cheese, throwing in spices like onion powder, garlic power, dill, or whatever you like, and then pureeing them in a little food chopper, which transforms it into something smooth, creamy, and dip-like.

And if you’re looking for more virtuous snack food, I have our family’s well-loved Roasted Chickpea recipe as well as some healthful dip recipes here. Yummy!