Cracker Chronicles

I have been searching and experimenting with crackers. If anyone has cracker recipes they like, please share them in the comment section below!!!

A few things I have learned:

• Crackers need salt! :-)
• Rolling your crackers: I always spray the sheet. The thinner the better. I find splitting the batter up (depending on how big the batch is) into 2-4 sections and rolling them onto the tray that way makes them easy to manage. I roll it almost from edge to edge using one of the Pampered Chef Rollers (pictured). I never liked it for real pastry or bread rolling, it's too small, but now I find it is a very valuable tool for rolling crackers right onto the sheet very thinly. This could also be replicated by using a smooth this glass or vase, if you want to be creative or thrifty. A rolling pin would be too cumbersome and bulky for the task if your cookie sheet has sides like mine. You can press some doughs by hand - but it is hard to get a smooth thin cracker.
• Cutting your crackers: Some recipes say to use a cookie cutter, biscuit cutter or a sharp knife, but I find it much easier to just roll it out as thin as I want it in one flat cracker, then cutting it with a pizza wheel. I have learned not to take my dough to close to the edges because my sheet has sides and the roller gets stopped by them. But this is clearly the quickest and easiest way to shape my crackers.
• Air holes: You may notice some crackers have air holes (like a traditional saltine). I find this is necessary if the cracker is a dry dough or has leaven (baking powder or soda). You simply poke wholes in all through your dough with fork tines after it has been rolled out onto the sheet.
• Once you get a good base recipe that is plain. You can begin to play with it. Adding herbs, switching flours, adding seeds or ground nuts or veggie or fruit powders, switching sweeteners, subbing apple sauce for oil, etc... The cool thing is that lots of time the batches are small, so it's not big waste if it was a blunder. Then when you know you've got some good ones, write it down and triple the recipe! :-)
• Crackers are quick to make! I even discovered one recipe that comes from a mix you make ahead, so you can have a mix on hand to whip up a batch in 15 minuted flat preheating the oven to pulling the crackers out of it!

I hope you are inspired to try and play with some of the recipes I post, and that you will post variations and recipes of your own - in the comment sections relating to crackers.

Before you know it - your kitchen will become "Mamma's Laboratory"! It is so fun! Especially when it turns out tasty! Up from the ashes grow the crackers of success....or something like that. :-)