I like baking the occasional super lazy loaf of bread but frankly sourdough bread is a helluva undertaking and I can barely be trusted to keep my starter alive in the fridge much less lovingly feed it up twice a day for a week, and anyway why bother with all that when I already have to find a way to use up my discard starter. So in my attempts to find inventive and delicious ways to not throw out food (regardless of the fact that it's barely a step away from paper mache) I turned instead to an enduring love of mine, the snacky cracker.
Based on the stuff I tend to have on hand and my own tastes I ended up switching back and forth pretty regularly between two recipes but ever the fiddler, of course I ended up smashing them together to form delicious snacky Voltron.
The first attempt was a cheese cracker because lets not fool ourselves, cheese.
Curious Cuisiniere SOURDOUGH CHEESE CRACKERS
But frankly, I'm always busy and I always want crackers now. Enter the Pretzel Cracker Recipe
BakeNQuilt - Sourdough Surprises: Pretzel Crackers
I did two batches so one was a straightforward coarse salt, the other was vanilla sugar. These were fast and light and crisp and super easy but they were just... missing something.
The second time I made them I realized my olive oil had gone rancid (???) and I had to sub in another oil. Remembering the butter in the earlier recipe and figuring the temps were not so far off that I had to worry about burning I took a gamble and it paid off. Noms.
From there I started to really play. Mustard/garlic/paprika/butter pretzel crackers, a successfully halved batch of the cheese crackers, Honey/mustard/Worcestershire/toasted garlic pretzel crackers... you name it.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses but in the end I grew weary of each and sought to create my own hybrid.
So this is what I've come up with:
Cheese Pretzel Franken-Crackers
Active Prep in total: probably about 15-20 min
Resting time: 30 min to 1 hr
Cooking time 20-25 minutes
- 1/2 cup discarded sourdough starter
- 2 tsb oil (have used both melted butter and olive oil successfully)
Mix together dry for flour mix:
- 1/2 cup (I usually use ~2oz by weight) white whole wheat flour
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp mustard powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- heavy dash paprika (I use a smoked paprika)
Set up and hold aside for later
- 2-3 oz firm cheese finely shredded/grated (I have used asiago and several cheddars)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 & 1/2 tsp baking soda
- coarse sea salt or other garnish of choice
Directions
- Combine starter mix and flour mix until it forms a soft dough
- shape into a rectangular piece approx 1/2 inch thick - wrap and let rest in fridge 30 min-1hr
While dough is resting
- Heat water to boiling and add baking soda
- stir to combine, set aside, and allow to cool
After dough has rested
- preheat oven to 375
- begin kneading dough, incorporating shredded cheese thoroughly a handful at a time
- the dough will be loose due to the cheese but once the cheese is well incorporated and you see it start firming up a little it should be good to go
Rolling out
IT WILL BE HELPFUL TO DO THIS NEXT STEP ON SOMETHING FLEXIBLE, NONSTICK, AND ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS YOUR BAKING SHEET LIKE TRIMMED PARCHMENT OR A SILPAT AS YOU WILL HAVE TO FLIP IT OVER AFTER ROLLING IT OUT AND IT WILL BE VERY THIN AND STICKY
- Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until comfortably covering the majority of a cookie sheet and ~ 1/16 inch thick
- erring on the thin side will give you a very light crisp cracker, erring on the thicker side will give you a pleasantly tender cracker
- Caveat: I have completely forgotten the light flouring part once or twice and been just fine
Once dough is the preferred shape and thickness
- brush entire surface with cooled baking soda wash and allow to soak in ~2 minutes
- flip dough over onto lightly floured final baking surface (if you happen to have two silpat sheets you will be very happy for that fact at this point)
- repeat baking soda brushing and soaking
- Sprinkle top with coarse sea salt or topping of choice (Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Seasoning is AMAZING for this)
- Cut with pizza cutter or knife into squares - you do not have to separate the pieces
Bake for 20-25 minutes total, turning tray half way
- Start checking the edge crackers to watch for browning at about 15 minutes and pull out any well browned crackers
- I have only ever done these on a silpat on a dark coated cookie sheet, you may want to watch a little more carefully on a different surface
- Remove crackers to cool on a rack
Attempt not to eat them all in one sitting, but know that you will probably fail.
