Sourdough Discard Crackers
The early weeks of the pandemic meant that I was baking a ton. I have two sourdough starters (Olive and Harold) who live in my fridge most of the time. I took it Olive out of the fridge and fed it every day for about 4-5 months before she went back into my fridge.
If you have your starter out, I highly recommend making these crackers. It uses quite a bit of the discard and they are delicious for a snack. I love to give these as gifts too. They last for about a week but good luck keeping them around that long. It yields about 100 crackers but you can cut them as big or as small as you like -just adjust the baking time (bake for a longer if they are bigger or shorter time if they are smaller).
This is a recipe I adapted from the King Arthur Flour website. I have tried the recipe using butter but I prefer it with olive oil. Something to note, you have to increase the amount of fat in the cracker if you are using butter instead of olive oil!
Sourdough Discard Crackers
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour (I have also used bread flour and it works well)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup sourdough starter, discard (before you’ve fed your starter)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Everything bagel seasoning or za’atar or a seasoning mix or dried herbs of your choice
coarse salt for sprinkling on top (omit if your seasoning has salt in it)
Directions:
1- Mix together the flour, salt, sourdough starter and olive oil to make a smooth dough. If it is a little too sticky, add a bit more flour. If it is too dry, add a bit more olive oil
2- Divide the dough in half. Cover each half in plastic wrap and flatten into a disc or square. Refrigerate for about half an hour or up to a couple of hours, until you are ready to bake. It should be firm but let the dough soften slightly before rolling out to avoid cracks.
3- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
4- Cut two pieces of parchment to the size of your cookie sheets. Dust them with flour before placing one of the dough discs on it. Make sure to dust your rolling pin with flour too! Roll the crackers until quite thin about 2mm thick but I just eyeball it. Sprinkle liberally with everything bagel seasoning, za’atar, dried herbs or whatever you like. If your seasoning mix doesn’t have salt, you can add a bit of flaky or coarse salt. I like to roll over the seasoning with my rolling pin to make sure it sticks to the dough.
5-Transfer the dough on the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cut the dough into cracker sized pieces. A great tip is to use a pizza-wheel cutter for this job. I am very free-form with this and cut them into cracker-sized pieces. Prick or dock each cracker with a fork.
6- Bake the crackers for about 20-25 minutes, rotating the trays from front to back, and top to bottom at the halfway point. The crackers are ready when they are golden-brown around the edges. Keep your eyes on them if you cut your crackers on the smaller-size.
7- Eat plain or serve with hummus, dip or whatever tickles your fancy.