Every year, April 28th and is dedicated to the cracker. (By the way, in the USA, the term "cracker" most often refers to salty or savory biscuits. But in the UK, crackers might be less salty and called water biscuits or savory biscuits.)
Crackers were born out of necessity for food that would keep well on naval vessels centuries ago. These days, crackers are most often used as a vehicle for cheese or meat spreads, but they deserve more credit than that.
So Cracker Day is a chance to try new crackers and appreciate the simple pleasure of a good cracker done right with sourdough.
Martha Levie's Sourdough Flax Seed Cracker Recipe
Make your own delicious crackers that are nutritious, easily digested, and made with just sourdough starter, flour, butter, honey, flax seeds, and salt.
Serving Size:
INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup | 113g Butter, softened to room temperature
- 1½ cups | 360g Sourdough Starter or discard
- 2 cups | 260g Flour (you may use any combination of all-purpose, organic white flour, or whole wheat)
- 1 tsp | 6g Salt
- ¼ cup | 37g Flaxseeds
- ⅓ cup |113g Honey (optional for a sweeter cracker)
- Optional toppings: sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried herbs, spices
DIRECTIONS
- Combine all ingredients and allow it to ferment (sit overnight) for 8+ hours covered, at room temperature.
- After the long ferment, divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a flattened circle.
- With a pastry roller, roll the dough out on a well-greased or parchment lined cookie sheet to your desired thickness .
- Cut into squares with a pizza cutter.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175 °C).
Check often since not all ovens deliver the same heat. - Crackers are done when light brown.
There are Crackers
and Then There are Horses
This year, on April 28th, there is an unusual convergence of Cracker Days. While many of us will praise our humble round, rectangular, triangular, or irregular biscuit, folks in Volusia County Florida will be celebrating their 72nd Annual Cracker Day Rodeo.
These events showcase and recognize Cracker Horses, a Spanish breed most often breed in Florida. They got their name from the cowboys who ride them that use a whip to round up cattle; the whip is snapped making a cracking sound.
“In almost every month of the year, there’s a Cracker Day somewhere in Florida with ‘cracker activities’: bluegrass music, barbeques, quilting, crafts, storytelling, horse riding. Someone from Florida hearing of Cracker Day may well think of the back-country folks activity day. While there are different theories guessing as to why these people were called ‘crackers’, none of them sadly touch on crackers, as in the biscuit.”—Tafilah Yusof at pixabay.com
Either way, today is a good day to highlight sourdough crackers by making and baking a batch.
3 comments
Terry, just soften the butter to room temperature and combine it with all the other ingredients. And yes, those steps were reversed. Thanks for catching that mistake
I was excited to try this recipe as my first venture into sourdough, but these turned out more like tough bread than crackers. As there were no details on how to mix the ingredients, especially the butter (plus I think steps 2 and 3 are reversed?), I just melted it and stirred it in. The dough fermented for 16 hours and was easy to roll out, and I had to leave them in the oven as it cooled to get them to crisp up. The honey made them too sweet imo, so next time I will omit that and also sprinkle them with extra salt before baking. As for the butter I will try either cutting it in like homemade Wheat Thins or just allowing it to soften as for cookies, before mixing it in. Letting the dough rest for a while after rolling it out may also help relax the gluten. I could at least tell that these were sourdough, as they did have a noticeable tang!
Is the butter supposed to be melted and added, or cut in chilled like for piecrust, or just softened in advance?