Olive Oil Crackers

Day 1 

In the last week, Max and Rowan polished off
4lbs of cheese and four boxes of wheat thins (1 of which was a family sized box).  Besides the fact that I absolutely cringe at packaged foods as a mainstay of any diet, I fear they will eat me out of house and home with their cheese/wheat thins addiction.  After a friend posted about her adventures in homemade cracker making on facebook, I decided to try and give crackers a whirl.

I first tried a gluten-free recipe for me and I am pleased to say they were fantastic, delicious, stupendous, amazing.  Need I say more?  Ok, they were great and easy and incredibly versatile.

The boys took a bite or two and then rejected them completely.  Moose, my husband, thought they were somewhat tasty, but I could tell he was suspiscious and probably would not eat any beyond what I asked him to try.  This was a couple weeks ago.  I was right.

After the wheat thins craze of late, I decided I needed to revisit the cracker idea.  I found the following recipe for crackers, chock full of gluten, but a possibility for the boys on a lovely website:  101 Cookbooks

Olive Oil Crackers

1 1/2 cups semolina flour
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup warm water
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

special equipment: pasta machine (optional)

Whisk together the flours and salt. Add the water and olive oil. Using a mixer with a dough hook attachment mix the dough at medium speed for about 5 - 7 minutes. Alternately, feel free to mix and then knead by hand on a floured counter-top. The dough should be just a bit tacky - not too dry, not too sticky to work with. If you need to add a bit more water (or flour) do so.

When you are done mixing, shape the dough into a large ball. Now cut into twelve equal-sized pieces. Gently rub each piece with a bit of olive oil, shape into a small ball and place on a plate. Cover with a clean dishtowel or plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30 - 60 minutes.

While the dough is resting, preheat your oven to 450F degrees. Insert a pizza stone if you have one.

When the dough is done resting, flatten one dough ball. Using a rolling pin or a pasta machine, shape into a flat strip of dough - I can usually get down to the 4 setting on my pasta machine w/o trouble. Pull the dough out a bit thinner by hand (the way you might pull pizza dough). You can also cut the dough into whatever shape you like at this point. Set dough on a floured (or cornmeal dusted) baking sheet, poke each cracker with the tines of a fork to prevent puffing, add any extra toppings, and slide into the oven (onto the pizza stone). Repeat the process for the remaining dough balls, baking in small batches. If you don't have a pizza stone, bake crackers a few at a time on baking sheets. Bake until deeply golden, and let cool before eating - you will get more crackery snap.

Makes a dozen extra large crackers. 

My Notes:

I did not use a pasta machine and I did not feel like bothering with a pizza stone.  I used a cookie sheet and a silicone liner from kitchen Aid. The first two balls I baked off, I forgot to prick with a fork and realized I hadn't rolled them out evenly enough.  I think this is key.  I did some as small, wheat-thin sized crackers and a couple larger sheets.  This is a mistake.  Cut them all around the same size, or you'll wind up burning some of them and having some of them come out not quite done, like I did.  That first batch, I cooked for 12 minutes.  Way too long.  I brushed them with olive oil and seasoned them with a bit of fresh grated parmesan, sea salt and pepper.  James thought they were bland and would definitely not stand in for wheat thins. The kids were in bed.

The second batch, I tried to role out uniformly and cut all roughly the same size, which is incredibly easy using a pizza cutter like Heidi mentions in the recipe.  I brushed them liberally with olive oil, layered grated parmesan (grated with a microplane), a fair amount more of sea salt and pepper.  I also remembered to prick them and baked them for 8 minutes.

Perfection.  They look beautiful, don't they?

The Results

The boys not only tried them, they ate the whole batch! (4 of the 12 mini-balls).  I'll be finishing up the rest of the recipe tonight.

Unfortunately, I cannot comment myself because somehow I thought it would be a good idea to make something I can't eat.  It seemed fine at the time.  That is until I couldn't taste it to see how it came out.  Not a fantastic idea, I might add.  This is especially so because I'm trying a 28 day elimination diet to see what food sensitivities I really do have and I'm only on day 3.

Note to self:  go back to the gluten-free version and try to make them tasty for the boys, sans cheese.  Maybe in a month or so, I'll post that version as a day's recipe.