The Wheat Crackers I Made This Weekend

My favorite cracker is the Ak Mak stone ground wheat and sesame cracker. The word cracker is a pretty simple one and you would think the ingredients should be as well. Ak Mak did it right: whole wheat flour, water, clover honey, sesame oil, butter, sesame seeds, salt, yeast. But since I’m such a huge fan of finger food, crackers don’t last long here. I can find them readily at Central Market, or if I really dig around I can sometimes find them at the normal grocery store. But it’s frustrating to pay almost two dollars for a box that lasts only two days. And since the ingredients list is so slim, why are they so expensive? For sure I can do this myself, right? Sunday night I decided to try this out.

I went to my stand-by website www.recipezaar.com to look for cracker recipes. There were plenty to choose from. I picked this one submitted by WaterMelon because her recipe matched Ak Mak the closest. This dough is essentially a pie dough (flour, fat, water) and should be handled the same way.

For the flour I used a combination of two flours: cracked wheat and whole wheat. For the fat I used olive oil. I did not add the sesame seeds because I prefer them on top instead of inside. It’s been extra humid here lately so I did not need to use much water. I’ve been saving the bags from cereal boxes lately, as per my mentor the Frugal Zealot. I used these to roll out the dough between instead of parchment paper or wax paper. This worked like a CHARM! It doesn’t rip or get water soaked or oil soaked. With this technique I was able to get the dough thinner than the 1/16th inch recommended. I think this is what made them bake so crispy.

These turned out so good! I took some to work for others to try because my opinion is not especially objective. One woman said they tasted like wheat thins! What a great compliment. I will definitely make these again in the future and I will definitely NOT change anything about the procedure. Although I might experiment with herbs and spices in the mix.