gluten free crackers

So, I figured if I could replace crackers – to be eaten with soups, hummus, and our favorite snacky dinner of meat, cheese, pate, olives, etc. – well, then I would be ok.

You can buy good ones of course, we found these tasty ones by Nature’s Way or something like that. But they were $5 a box. For like 25 crackers. Ugh.

So I googled.

I found this great blog with this recipe. There are so many recipes out there for this sort of thing actually. My frustration is that you really have to combine forty-seven different kinds of flour to get just the right mix to form bread, cake, crackers, etc.

And you all know me. I am NOT into that much measuring.

So I did what I do best. Experimented.

I had to laugh at the kids Curious George episode yesterday. The scientist lady (what is her name? Oh yes, Dr. Wiseman. Love that. I always think she and the man with the yellow hat – who has NO NAME, weird – would make a cute couple) well, she was trying to bake a cake. She enjoyed the “creative process” of it and said recipes were boring. The cake was terrible. And then George and the others convinced her it was more like a scientific “formula” and then she was on board (“as easy as gene splicing” she says). I thought. That is totally me too. HA.

Anyway. Back to the crackers.

I found this flour by Namaste foods (of course that is the company that makes gluten free flour, HA, what is with gluten free and crunchy hippy-ness? It’s funny to me. I am totally falling further and further into it of course but its still funny. Although when we went to Whole Foods to get this flour I was aghast at people who were obviously doing all their normal shopping at the store. Do they know you can buy organic produce for half the price at regular stores? I mean, it kills me how expensive that store is, but anyway… Apologies for all the parenthetical typing. I obviously need more coffee.)

And, back to the flour. It is a mix of a few different flours. DIDN’T work for pancakes on Saturday, a sticky gummy mess, there are mixes for pancakes that we will try. But it makes AWESOME crackers.

So here is what I did.

Two and a half cups of above flour mix (or so, I didn’t really measure of course, you want to add the last half cup or so to get the right consistency, thicker than bread dough, more runny like cake batter). (And of course you could totally use regular wheat flour to create these...)
¼ cup (or so) of nutritional yeast
Dash salt (or two dashes)
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup milk (or so)
½ cup warm water (or so)
Dash garlic salt

You could throw in all kinds of other fun things – herbs, flax seeds, etc.

You will now have a sticky gooey mess on your hands. Pour some olive oil on your stone baking sheets, rub it around with your hands so your hands are covered too. Now glop ½ onto each and spread it out with your fingers, stretching it into place. The thinner the dough the crisper the cracker. Put into a preheated oven (350). The original recipe says bake for 23 minutes which is funny to me. But really I think it’s about spot on. Take out when the edges start browning. Cool on wire racks or, do what I do and rip open a paper bag. Voila cooling rack! They will crisp up as they cool. Store in airtight container. They lose their crisp fast. You can recrisp in the oven for a few minutes. Store longer term in the freezer and then crisp up in oven (or toaster oven! I miss mine…no counter space here though.)

I plan on using this to make a crisp pizza tonight. Here is hoping!