My fiance Ben is what I like to call a cracker addict. I think he went through roughly a 6 month period where he would buy a super size box of Wheat Thins from Costco, and polish them off within a week by himself. Obviously, this wasn’t the healthiest thing to be constantly snacking on, or I guess gorging in his case considering the amount he was eating, but he didn’t really care until he noticed that the dial on the scale had moved up a couple notches. That was the end of cracker-gate. Ben kissed his standby Wheat Thins adios, and moved on to what he believed to be a lesser evil with caramel corn rice cakes. “Rice cakes are diet food,” he says, “there is literally nothing in them. Nothing.”
He’s trying.
While rice cakes are essentially just puffed up rice that’s low in calories, they are equally low in nutrition. Caramel coloring isn’t exactly a food group either, so I guess if he is referring to the nutritional value, he is 100% right. There is nothing in them. I needed to find some sort of cracker replacement for him that would at least contain all natural ingredients, and actually benefit his health rather than hinder it. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard.
These rosemary sesame crackers are “yummy” as Ben put it. “Kind of salty, kind of sweet. Would be really good with some hummus. Do you wanna make me hummus? Then I can tell you for sure, but I bet they would be.” If you couldn’t tell, he really enjoys having a fiance that cooks for a living. This recipe honestly takes about 10 minutes to whip up, and you don’t need to use a rolling pin if you really don’t want to. It’s definitely helpful, but not totally necessary. You want the dough to be about 1/8″ thick so it crisps up like a cracker should, so a rolling pin would be helpful in achieving uniform thickness.
This dough just needs to be kneaded together, rolled out (or squished out with your hands) onto parchment paper, and cut into squares with a pizza or pastry cutter. Take away the mangled sides (or don’t, its’ really up to you), slap it on a baking sheet and 20 minutes later you’ve got some freshly baked, healthy crackers.
- 1/2 cup brown rice flour (grind your own or purchase); sifted
- 1/2 cup whole almonds ground into flour; sifted
- 2 tbsp ground flax
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp. onion powder
- 1/2 tsp Himalayan sea salt
- 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning
- 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
- 1/4 tsp. baking soda
- 2 Tbsp. raw sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp. virgin coconut oil; softened
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine flours, nutritional yeast, ground flax, baking soda and seasonings. Stir to mix.
- Add in sesame seeds, wet ingredients and softened coconut oil. Mix thoroughly.
- Dough mixture may see slightly dry, but should bind together when squished together.
- Knead and combine dough into a ball and place it onto a piece of parchment paper.
- Use your rolling pin or your hands to roll dough out to 1/8″ thick.
- Using a pizza or pastry cutter, cut dough 3 times lengthwise and 6 times widthwise to create 18 squares.
- Place dough/parchment paper on a baking sheet, and cook on the center rack for about 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Store crackers in an air-tight container