The Gourmet Mama

I was looking for a fairly simple, healthy snack for my kids the other day and decided to try making some crackers. My plan was to bake enough to last a couple of days. The kids liked them so much, though, that they gobbled them all up in one sitting! Of course, their papa helped, because he thought they were pretty tasty, too.

You can easily buy snacks at the store, but nothing says gourmet more than homemade crackers. The main advantage to these is that you know exactly what goes into them and there are no chemicals or preservatives. I made these crackers with white flour, but you can use whole wheat.

These are easy to make, though the cutting out billions of tiny crackers was rather tedious. You could easily just cut them into squares instead though, drastically reducing prep time.

Herbed Soda Crackers

Makes about 4 cups small crackers
2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 stick margarine

1/2 c. milk

1 Tblsp. of salt

1 tsp. crumbled dried oregano

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix flour, baking powder and oregano in a bowl. Use your fingers to crumble the margarine into the flour mixture and break it up until only small bits are left.

Add milk and stir quickly until just mixed. Turn mixture onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth. Divide in two and roll out to about 1/4″ thickness.

You can use bento cutters, as I did here, or regular cookie cutters. For very quick crackers, just cut into rough squares. If your crackers are larger than 1″, use a fork to poke holes in them, since this will help them rise evenly and stay flat.

Brush crackers with milk or water and sprinkle with salt.

Bake your crackers on a cookie sheet for 10-20 min. depending on size. You can turn them, but I found that to be too much work, plus the crackers flew off the baking sheet and I was picking them off a hot oven . . . not so much fun. Just keep an eye on them and pull one out to test when you think they`re finished. If it has the crunch you`re looking for, pull them all out and cool in a bowl.