You can and should make crackers at home. Homemade crackers are far better than anything you will find in the grocery aisles. They are cheap, easy to make and give you a decent upper body workout while you roll out the dough paper-thin. Without the pepper, rosemary and cheese, these crackers are your basic butter cracker, but so much better than store-bought ones. They bake up with crispy browned bubbles and only take about 30 minutes from start to eat.
Like bread, crackers are a fun blank canvas. Try adding a little lemon zest and serve with a mild cheese, or mix in minced dates or minced dried cranberries and serve with bold cheddar. You can even add finely chopped black olives to crackers and spread with a tangy goat cheese or feta.
The key to these crackers is rolling the dough as thin as possible. If you don’t, the crackers will be a bit chewy. Here’s the trick: flip the baking sheet over and roll the dough out directly onto the bottom of the sheet. This way, you won’t bang your pin or your knuckles on the rim of your baking sheet and you can bake them directly on this surface. Be sure to place a slightly damp towel under the baking sheet to keep it from sliding while you roll. Here’s the recipe, now – I can’t help myself – get crackin’!
Rosemary-Parmesan Crackers Makes 40 to 50 crackers
2 cups flour plus more for dusting
1 Tbsp. sugar, plus more to taste
1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
¼ cup grated Parmesan
2 Tbsp. butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
2/3 cup milk (not skim)
• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
• Add the flour, sugar, salt, pepper, rosemary and cheese to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until combined. Add the pieces of chilled butter and process about 10 seconds, until the butter is incorporated. With the food processor running, pour in the milk and blend until the dough comes together.
• Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead about 3 to 5 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball and cut in half. Flip a baking sheet and roll out one of the dough halves as thin as possible (It should be almost transparent.). Repeat with the remaining dough ball on the bottom of another baking sheet.
• Sprinkle the dough with salt and pepper to taste. Then pierce the dough all over with a fork and score it with a knife into 1½-inch squares or whatever size cracker you’d like.
• Bake on the inverted baking sheets 12 to 13 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through the cooking time. Remove from the oven and let rest for a few minutes, then move the crackers onto a wire rack to cool completely, at least 1 hour.
• Crackers will keep up to 1 week in an airtight container.
This article appears in Guide to Beer 2014.