This Week's Adventure

Cracker… biscuit… cookie… things

Last week, I made some interesting little wafers which were tasty, but didn’t turn out quite like they were supposed to.

I thought KAF’s rich crackers would taste kind of like Ritz crackers. I can happily eat an entire sleeve of those in one sitting–it’s the crispy butter effect–so I was very much looking forward to these.

The rich crackers come together like a piecrust or a biscuit. You start by cutting cold butter into your dry ingredients, then mixing in your wet ingredients, which consist of a beaten egg and some cream. You work the dough just enough to bring it together, then roll it out.

cracker collage 1
Assembling and mixing the ingredients. The book version of the recipe involves a chill in the fridge that’s not in the online version, hence the wrapping.

The recipe says to roll the dough between 1/8th and 1/16th of an inch thick. Mine ended up closer to 1/8th, because I was impatient. Consequently, they didn’t bake up super crisp… they were rather like very thin biscuits, but extra buttery, and almost sweet enough to be a cookie. Strange, but good. I imagine if I rolled them a bit thinner, they would be more cracker-like.

cracker collage 2.jpg
The dough was rather sticky, so I ended up getting the rounds off the counter with my bench scraper. That squished them a bit, but they flattened out with a bit of stretching. There was just enough scrap to squish into one more cracker at the end.

They get toasted in the oven for five minutes, then flipped and baked a little more, and finally brushed with melted butter. I had them in two pans, so I rotated them at the halfway point, and it was funny to see how they browned differently. The pan-side down surface of the crackers on the lower rack definitely browned the most.

cracker collage 3.jpg
Bottom left: crackers flipped, about to bake more. Bottom right: brushing butter on the side that didn’t brown as much. Top right: Bottom-baking biscuits brown better.

Husband liked these, and they definitely weren’t a failure, but they probably deserve another go with some effort to roll them a bit thinner. I don’t think they’re meant to turn out like Ritz, though–less crispy, more tender. Hey, there’s room for both in the world.

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