Seed Crackers

Seed Cracker – close up

Well, I finally did it!  Found a great cracker recipe that uses no flour, has a real flexible ingredient list and also tastes great!  Healthy, crunchy, is very simple to make and is seasoned just right.  Don’t these look yummy?

The secret appears to be the chia seeds.  They behave a bit like flax seeds in that when soaked in water they become gummy.  This is the ‘glue’ that binds the cracker together.

The Base Recipe:

1/2 cup chia seeds

1 1/2 cups of other seeds.

(Pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, flax, quinoa, etc.  Get a mix of what you like and what you have on hand.  Use different sized seeds for best results. Whole Flax adds an additional crunch to the cracker.  Chia seeds are required, as they gum the mixture together. The larger sunflower and pumpkin seeds limit how thin you can roll the dough, which is a good thing.)

1 tsp salt

1 cup water

In addition to the above, after making this recipe 20 times, I like to add the following

1 tbsp granulated garlic

1 tbsp Mrs. Dash Original

1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1/4 cup grated Kraft Parmesan cheese or 1/4 cup large flake nutritional yeast

(Optional:  for an extra crunchy cracker, add 1/4 cup of brown rice flour, plus 2 tbsp additional water)

Preheat oven to 325.  Total cooking time 50-60 minutes.

Mix all the dry together in a bowl.  Add the water, mix it all up.  Wait at least 15 minutes.  You will have a thick gummy ‘dough,’ with no free water present in the bowl.  When pressed, the dough will stick/clump together.

Spread on parchment lined sheet pans.  I use two pans for this recipe, each of which are 10 by 15 inches. (Dollar Store parchment paper at $1 per 25 square feet is fine.)  Divide mix into two longish mounds.  Spread from the center to the edges with a silicone spatula or place a sheet of wax paper on top and use a rolling pin, as if making a pie crust.  Try to get as thin as possible without the paper showing through.  If parchment paper shows through, repair.  Slowly peel off wax sheet, if used, and discard.  You will have to flip these things once, so score down the middle so each piece is flipable.

After scoring

Place on the middle rack of your oven and cook for 30 minutes.  Turning pans several times, rotating between oven racks. Remove from oven and flip each of the pieces over.  At this point I have found that scoring the pieces, with a plastic flipper, into cracker sized pieces is the best.  This gives more ‘edge’ to toast, a bit like how dollar cakes are different in texture than regular sized pancakes.

Return to oven and cook 30 more minutes.  After 20 minutes, give them a visual check.  Turn pans around in oven.  The edges of the crackers will start to take on a light brown toasted appearance.  Almost done!  The last 10 minutes are the most important.  Some of the crackers will be done before the others; as they brown up, remove to cool. ****************************************************************************************

Done!

Cool on the pans.  Store in air-tight container.

Enjoy with any dip, alone, or with hummus.

(I would not heat the oven up just for a batch of these, but when I am doing other baking, I check my stash of seed crackers and make a batch when the oven is hot! )

’til next time,
Dennis George
Highland Garden House B & B
501 E. Highland Ave.
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
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