Get Crackin' - With Whole Grain Crackers
I Love Crackers! The crisper the better! In an effort to make all of your families' food as healthy as possible, we have been posting some great homemade recipes for foods that many of us purchase ready-made but containing high levels of fats and sugars and low levels of fiber and nutrition. Crackers certainly come under this category. Like I pointed out in my last post, they are very easy to make and take very little time to bake but produce a wonderful result with great flavour but also the peace of mind that you know what is in the food you and your family are consuming. I thought for this post I would discuss some different types of whole grain crackers as well as some gluten free examples.
Whole Wheat Crackers (from Eat More Whole Grains Cookbook)- Usually all crackers will have some baking soda in them which is what helps them to rise a little while baking. In this recipe following we put the baking soda in some warm water first so soften it and get its bubbling action going.
2 Tbsp. warm water
1 tsp. baking soda
1 3/4 cups warm water
2/3 cup oil
1 Tbsp. salt
4 cups of whole wheat flour ( we freshly mill ours with the Nutrimill)
1 Tbsp. Saf yeast
4 cups all purpose flour. ( you could substitute barley flour or oat flour or corn flour or even rye and triticale flour for any of the flours in this recipe)
Directions : Put the baking soda into the 2 Tbsp. of warm water and set aside. Put the remaining water into the Bosch bowl equipped with the dough hook. Add oil, salt, and whole wheat flour and finally the soda water. Mix on speed one until smooth. Sprinkle with the yeast and mix again. Add remaining flour and let knead for 5 min on speed one. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Oil the counter and place some foil or parchment paper on the counter so it sticks down onto it. Oil the surface of the foil and roll out each part of the dough until 1/8" thick (we use our pizza rollers to do this right on the cookie sheets) By pulling on the foil, transfer the the rolled out dough to a flat cookie sheet. Cuts into squares ( a pizza cutter works great) and prick with a fork. Sprinkle lightly with salt or garlic or cheese powder (or even a herb or spice if you wish) and bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown about 10 min. Cool and store in a can with a tight lid.
For variety you could add 1 cup of crushed flax (in the blender) or corn meal, or sesame seeds. For a real twang you can mix a little barbecue sauce into the dough. Cheese powder or bacon bits can be sprinkled on top or my favorite personally is to mixed some grated sharp cheddar right into the dough. Triticale grain milled into the flour makes a wonderful flavoured cracker so try that if you have some to use up.
Click here for printable recipe for Whole Wheat Crackers
Multi Grain Crackers - this tasty recipe from Cooking With Chef Brad Cookbook, uses buttermilk, or yogurt or regular milk plus rolled oats. Again you can use whatever flour you wish including spelt or barley or oat flour (for gluten free) and sprinkle on whatever topping you wish for a different flavour. You can also pop the amaranth (from and earlier blog) and use it instead of the rolled oats.
Click here for the recipe for Multi-Grain Crackers.
Gluten Free Crackers - As I have pointed out throughout this post , you can use whatever flour you wish to make these crackers gluten freen. However here is Pam's recipe for Quinoa Millet Crackers with sesame seeds that has been developed solely for our Gluten Free customers.
Try all these great cracker ideas and get Crackin' too! |
