Ingredients
- 2 cups of whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup of raw wheat germ
- 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup of cold water water
Directions
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Blend together the flour, salt, sesame seeds, and wheat germ, then add the oil and mix well with a fork. Pour in the cold water, mix, and continue to add water a tablespoon at a time until the dough is soft and workable. (Flours vary in their ability to absorb moisture, so I can’t tell you exactly how much water to use.) Finally, turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead it for at least ten minutes. (The longer, the better.) Set the dough aside.
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Now pull off a golf-ball-sized lump of paste and roll it into a ball. Then—using a floured rolling pin—roll the dough out until it’s cardboard thin … as thin as it’ll get without tearing. You should now have a cracker that’s about 5" in diameter. [Or do as our staff recipe testerdid and shape smaller, easier—to—handle crackers with a cookie cutter.—The Editors.] Repeat this procedure untill you’ve used all the remaining dough.
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Next, heat an ungreased cast-iron skillet as hot as you can get it. (If you cook on a wood stove, you don’t need a skillet … just use the top of the stove.) Bake each cracker in the skillet (or on the stove top) till it’s light-brown on the bottom, then flip it over and just barely brown the other side. [Again, our staff tester tested another method with good results: Bake the Crackers on an ungreased cookie sheet in a 400’F oven, turning as described above to brown both sides — The Editors.]
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Allow the crackers to cool thoroughly on a before storing them in an airtight container,
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You can vary this “basic cracker recipe” in dozens of ways. Instead of using two cups of whole wheat flour, for instance, you can use one cup of finely ground corn, rye, oats, buckwheat, or rice, and one cup of whole wheat flour. Alternatively, you can replace the sesame se eds with one-half cup of sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, soy grits, shredded coconut, chopped or ground nuts … you name it.
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Or you can make your snackin’ crackers real gems of nutrition by substituting a quarter cup of non-ins tant dry milk or soy powder for the quarter cup of eat germ.
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Then too, you can give your crackers added zest and tanginess with herbs. It’s possible to make “herb crackers” once a week for a year without repeating a flavor if you use a little imagination. Try adding a teaspoon of dried (or a tablespoon of fresh) thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, parsley, marjoram, chives, dill, savory, or basil to the basic cracker recipe. Or chop a of garlic and toss that in. Or throw in a tablespoon of whole caraway seeds. (Caraway seems to go especially with corn.)