How to make your own crackers

Cracker making seems a bit excessive when you can buy perfectly lovely crackers in the store. But in desperate times…

Last weekend I had a ton of broad beans leftover from my farm-share (CSA) box. I really like making this broad bean dip, but we didn’t have anything to eat it on. After some searching, I came across this cracker recipe and thought: 4 ingredients, 15 minutes, simple!

Unfortunately, this experience with cracker making left me less than convinced. Maybe there’s a reason (other than laziness) why we buy crackers? Maybe I just didn’t roll them thin enough? Maybe there was too much flour?

A few of the crackers got very golden brown and crispy in the oven – these were pretty tasty. But lots of them were just slightly chewy (not a good quality in a cracker). And some were still coated with flour, even after baking. Where have I gone wrong? I still have half of the dough in the freezer, so I’ll experiment with that soon to see if it was the rolling that was the problem.

If you want to try making crackers yourself, here is the recipe I used – you could make endless variations on it by changing the herbs, salt, flour etc. If you try it, let me know!

Rosemary Sea Salt Crackers

2 c. (290g) flour

1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 TB (30g) soft butter

approx 1 c. (250ml) milk

1 TB finely chopped rosemary

Preheat oven to 300F/150C. Mix together all ingredients into a smooth batter.

Turn out onto floured board. At this point I put half the dough into a log in the freezer for future use (hoping I can just slice it frozen like slice-and-bake cookies? Or maybe will thaw and roll out).

Roll out the remaining dough with a rolling pin until very thin (1/8″). I think the thinner the better – you want the crackers to really crisp up in the oven.