Wednesday 6 September 2017

Absolutely Crackers

Last Saturday I decided to do some pre-term decluttering. Liz is far better at this than I am, and her endeavours lately have encouraged me to try a bit harder. And there was a lot of stuff temporarily moved onto the spare room bed during the carpet cleaning which really needed sorting. I found a whole file of recipe clippings. And I had to accept that 99.9% of them would never make it into the kitchen, let alone the oven. So they went into the recycling bin. But I did keep back 'the 10 best oat recipes' - saved from the Guardian 4 years ago. I always have oats in the cupboard, porridge is our favourite breakfast cereal. And Bob is very fond of an oatcake [or 4] as a snack, with some cheese.
I thought I'd have a go at Chutney and Oat Crackers

Recipe says "Makes about 45 crackers" - it lies! 20 if you're lucky

  • 80gm rolled oats
  • 30gm nutritional yeast
  • 1tsp salt
  • ¼tsp baking powder
  • 30g chutney
  • 3tbsp olive oil
  1. Preheat oven to 180º/160ºfan. Line baking sheets
  2. Grind oats in processor to a fine flour. Add yeast, salt, bp -pulse several times
  3. Add chutney and oil, pulse till dough comes together
  4. Roll out between two pieces of baking paper to ½cm thick. Using round cutter between 2cm and 5cm diameter to cut out crackers
  5. Bake for around 14-16 minutes, until golden brown on the bottom. Leave to cool, then store in airtight container.
What on earth is 'nutritional yeast'? I used 1 tsp Marmite, and omitted the salt. 2cm is way too small for a cracker- that is postage stamp size! I used a 4cm cutter. I think I rolled dough a bit too thinly. Magazine pic on left, my crackers on the right

Bob said they had a pleasant 'umami-savouriness' about them, but next time he thought I should cook them for a shorter time.
TIP - I used a silicon loaf tin liner to line the baking sheet [hence oval shape] and also rolled out dough between 2 of these liners.  Less wasteful than using parchment paper.
Crackers crisped up beautifully when cool. Will try again, larger and thicker next time.


7 comments:

  1. Nutritional yeast is very different to yeast extract, it's sold as flakes and gives a creamy/ cheesy flavour to dishes. Much loved by lots of vegans.

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  2. I use a product called "Engevita yeast flakes" as seasoning when I make vegetable crisps. The back of the tin describes it as Nutritional Yeast Flakes" and it tastes rather like Marmite. I might have a go at those crackers. Thanks.

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  3. Thanks TD and FC for the prompt answer to my question. I'll check out our excellent little local health shop here in Ferndown

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  4. Oooh. I learnt from the Nutritional yeast commenters too! These sound great! Do you know what I do when there are recipes or bits of paperwork I want but don't have room for? I take a photo of them and then keep them on my computer for future use if needed. I refer to the screen for the recipe then!

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    Replies
    1. That's a great idea Kezzie. Many of my bits of paper have been in files for 25+ years- before we had laptops etc to take pictures save electronically. I have decided now that if I cut it out in 1980 and STILL haven't cooked it, it cannot have been that good a recipe! The recycling bin is getting fullerby the minute.

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  5. Those crackers look pretty good! I'm trying to do another round of decluttering, myself. Thanks for the reminder to look through my recipe collection!

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  6. I used to keep cuttings but now use the Evernote app on my iPad to upload links to online recipes, screenshots and photos of recipes. You can save them with keywords to make searching easier. No more scrappy bits of paper!

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