Ridiculously Good: Rustic Homemade Herb Crackers

Sometimes I think the best days are the ones that evolve naturally with little or no planning or calculation to them. And the following Saturday after we came back from Europe happened to be one of those days. I woke up early that gloomy Saturday morning, made a pot of french press and made myself comfortable with my laptop. It was an amazing trip abroad, but I was glad to be home nestled on our sofa and slowly working back into the everyday. I jumped on Pinterest between emails and blog planning and decided I wanted to cook something–it had seemed like forever since I’d done anything in my kitchen! We had picked up Boursin Cheese on our first stop at the grocery store, so I thought it would be fun to make something to go with it. 

I decided I’d use Martha Stewart’s Thyme Crackers as inspiration, as we happened to have all the ingredients already, (I’d picked up cream earlier that week for another project I’m working on!) but since I only have a mini food processor, and it’s not large enough to accommodate the recipe, I used my Kitchenaid mixer instead and it worked great! I also used a blend of fresh herbs from our balcony container garden rather than straight-up thyme.

For the past few months, I had quit buying crackers in the store because they all seemed to contain ingredients I couldn’t pronounce, so I was super excited to discover this recipe. It’s made up of simple ingredients, and the end result is de-li-cious! Seriously I’ve made them 3 times since that Saturday.

Anywho, back to that Saturday morning. The crackers came out of the oven, Ken was up, and the sun began to peek it’s little head out. So, on a whim we decided to take a picnic. We wrapped up our freshly baked crackers and whatever else we had in the fridge and made our way out the door to Lake Harriet. In case you missed it, you can check out the details of our simple picnic here!

Ingredients:

• 2- 1/2 T fresh herbs, minced — Any combination of whatever you have on hand or in your garden. I used rosemary, thyme, chives, parsley. The minced herbs should total 2- 1/2 Tablespoons (not 2-1/2 T of each).
• 2 c all-purpose flour + more for rolling out the dough
• 1-1/2 t sea salt + more for sprinkling on top
• 1 t white sugar
• 3 T cold unsalted butter
• 1 c heavy whipping cream
• 1 egg white

Special Equipment:

• electric mixer
• plastic wrap
• parchment paper
• rolling pin
• baking sheet
• rolling pizza slicer

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, add fresh herbs, flour, salt and sugar and combine on low using the mixing paddle attachment. Cut cold butter into small pieces and add to the flour mixture. Break up the butter pieces and incorporate them into the flour by mixing on low.  The mixture will be clumpy and kind of crazy looking at this point.

2. Switch out the paddle attachment for a dough hook. Turn your mixer on low and pour in cream in a steady stream until dough forms.

3. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough 4-5 times then divide into 4 pieces. Shape into 4 rectangles approximately 3″w x 4.5″l x .25-.5″ thick. (These measurements are just a rough guide–no need to be exact!) Wrap each rectangle in plastic wrap individually, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

5.Tear off a sheet of parchment paper just smaller than the size of the bottom of your baking sheet. The sheet should be large enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but not so large that it curls up the sides of the baking sheet rim.

6. Set the baking sheet aside and lay the parchment paper flat on your counter. Remove one of the chilled dough rectangles from the refrigerator. Remove plastic wrap and place on parchment paper. Roll out into a very, very thin rectangle, and using a pizza slicer, cut across the width of the rectangle creating long, skinny triangles. Move parchment paper + scored dough onto baking sheet.

7. Crack egg white into a bowl and discard the yolk. Use a fork to lightly beat the egg white then brush dough with a line layer of egg white and sprinkle with sea  salt. And if you’re feeling fancy, garnish with mini thyme or rosemary sprig at the thick end of each cracker–totally not necessary, but kind of fun, right?!

8. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, but check on them at 15 minutes. You’ll know they’re done when they’re golden brown and have puffed up slightly. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

9. Repeat steps 6-8 with the three remaining chilled dough rectangles, reusing parchment paper from 1st batch.

Serve warm or cooled with soft cheese, such as Boursin Cheese. Yum. Now dig in!

This recipe is an adaptation of Martha Stewarts Thyme Crackers.