If you're wondering why on earth I would spend the time making a simple cracker at home when most of you can probably just go out and get a box for about $2 (I don't know how much they cost these days), it's because I live in one of the smallest towns in Italy (or seems to be) and Wheat Thins don't exist here.. neither does a very good cracker variety. So when I saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, it was after a few days of cracker recipe searching, I was thrilled! I did change things a tiny bit because I was looking for a Kamut cracker, and once I did some research that Kamut flour can pretty much just replace other flours, my cracker search became easier. Reasons for using Kamut flour: I had some that needed to be used, higher protein content (meaning fewer carbs and staying full longer), more amino acids, and more vitamins. You can use just whole wheat if you like.. I added some in too.
Here's What I did:
Kamut Thin Crackers
1 cup Kamut flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (mine had some seeds in it)
1 1/2 Tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt, and more for the cracker tops
4 Tbs (about) butter- unsalted.
1/4 cup cold water
Oven at 400F or 200C and line the baking sheet with parchment paper (or lightly grease it).
I did everything by hand since I am still working on getting proper kitchen appliances. So I mixed in the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a bowl with my hands like you would making pastry dough. Once everything was mostly incorporated I added the water and mixed with a spoon but switched back to hands pretty quickly to knead the dough a couple of times. Roll out the dough, on a floured surface, to be about 1/8 inch thick. Make sure the dough isn't sticking. I used a pizza cutter (I'm sure if has a proper name) to cut the crackers into squares. Recommended size is 1 1/2 but mine, as you'll see in the photo, were anything but square. They seemed the shrink in the oven so don't worry about keeping them close on the baking sheet. Poke some holes in the tops - a fork works well, two to three sets should do depending on size. Don't forget to sprinkle with salt- I did both times and had to get the crackers back out of the oven for a second. Bake for about 5-7 min. or until golden brown. Take out of the oven and let cool on a rack. Since I had a lot of rough edges on my first set of crackers I wanted to use the dough for some more. I had thought that sun-dried tomato crackers would be yummy and I had some pate (or pesto) in the fridge. Conveniently the dough seemed a little dry from the first roll out so I just add about 1/2 teaspoon of the pate to the dough and kneaded it again. Floured the counter surface and rolled out some more crackers! They have just a hint of the sun-dried tomato flavor and it's fantastic.
For the real recipe by Smitten Kitchen and wonderful step by step photos go here.
oh, and yes, I did use my phone for photos. I may not be wasting my day in front of the TV, but I'm still a little lazy. That, and my computer is mad at me because I have too many photos on it as it is. I'll get back to the real thing soon!
