Mar
30
2009
0

Almond Flatbread Crackers

Bob’s Red Mill. Check it out if you don’t know about this company. I love their 5 and 10 grain blends so when I spotted their Baking Book on sale at Powell’s this weekend I snapped it up. It’s two whole pounds of healthy, grain-based recipes. I don’t have many of their fancy flours (chickpea, soy, amaranth flour, etc.) but I do have whole wheat, unbleached all purpose and some almond meal I dug up from the depths of the pantry.

It was moderately difficult to find a recipe that just called for these goodies and didn’t throw in a fancy curve ball at the end like malted barley flour. One of these days I’ll get my hands on all of these, one at a time and experiment, but not today.

Finally I found a cracker recipe that seemed fairly simple in both the baking process and the ingredients list. These turned out to be something along the lines of really really flat biscuits (which is also exactly what they look like). I have a feeling that homemade crackers will tend to be more on the chewy side than I like, and this was one of them. Even though about 1/3 the dry ingredients was almond meal they don’t taste like it, just whole wheaty. So, if you’re looking for a chewy cracker with a whole wheaty taste… this is it! They taste great with some cream cheese, jam or hummus on top and they’re really good warm from the oven.

p1020990

Almond Flatbread Crackers

from Bob’s Red Mill

1/3 c. almond meal
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. unbleached white flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking soda
2 T. softened, unsalted butter
1/3 c. plain yogurt or sour cream

Preheat to 400. Mix together dry ingredients in a medium/large bowl. Mix together butter and yogurt/sour cream and then combine with dry ingredients. Knead dough for about 30 seconds and then seperate into 2 pieces. Roll each piece until very thin. Cut into squares or any shape you want (about 2 inches in size). Bake crackers on an ungreased baking sheet for 6 minutes, or until just beginning to brown. Cool on wire rack.

Written by Hammy in: Books, Reviews, Snacks | Tags: ,
Mar
30
2009
0

Nerd Cool: BUTTER

I’m an impulsive baker. The only time I’ve ever planned to bake something before I started mixing things together was Thanksgiving when I had to plan around a huge hank of meat that would be taking over the oven for hours. Anyway, my point is that for baking they always tell you to use softened butter. Most people soften it either by sticking it on the counter for an hour (boooorrriinngggg) or nuking it for 20 seconds (which never works well, it always gets melty in places). I found this quick way to soften butter via Craftzine.

Images and instructions courtesy of elise.com.

———————————————

Just put the stick of butter between two large pieces of wax paper. Using a rolling pin, press down on the butter. Roll it out they way you would roll out a pie crust. When the butter is about 1/8 to 1/4-inch thick, lift off the wax paper and peel away the butter (before it gets too soft to peel).

soften-butter-tip-1.jpg soften-butter-tip-2.jpg
soften-butter-tip-3.jpg soften-butter-tip-4.jpg

VoilĂ ! Softened butter, ready for beating.

Thanks Elise.com and Craftzine!

Written by Hammy in: Cooking Blogs, How To | Tags: , ,

Powered by WordPress | Theme: Aeros 2.0 by TheBuckmaker.com