Part Three … here we go. We’ve done four cheese crackers, we’ve done four savory shortbread crackers and now, for the final installment in the 12 Days of Crackers, we have the most crackery of the bunch: Olive Oil Crackers and the first one is a particular favorite … Everything Spice Olive Oil Crackers.
The dough is pretty straight forward – flour, water, olive oil, salt, baking powder. That’s it. On it’s own, it’s a nice cracker if a bit plain so I added various things to the dough to jazz it up. We’ll get to that in a moment. First I want to talk about rolling out this dough. It’s lovely; soft and silky. You can roll it out by hand but as I discovered a while back making saltines, they turn out better and are easier on your hands/forearms if you break out the pasta machine. It does all the work for you and the dough is a nice, even thinness because a thin crisp cracker is important with this one. If you don’t have a pasta machine, don’t worry. Just diligently keep rolling, making sure the dough is lightly floured so avoid any sticky spots, until you get it nice and thin.
On its own this is a good, if plain, cracker. While you can just sprinkle the seasoning on top prior to baking, I’m not a fan of this method as it has a tendency to fall off both during baking and during eating. If I’m going to go to the trouble of making crackers, they better taste good. To combat this problem, I favor a two step flavoring approach. First: mix roughly half the seasoning mix into the dough. Secondly, sprinkle the top of the cracker with more seasoning, and maybe a touch more salt, before baking. It makes a huge different in flavor. (Be aware that if your seasonings have large pieces, they may tear the dough a bit in the pasta machine rollers but that’s ok. Just go with it.)
For this one, I’ve used everything spice, that mix of poppyseeds, sesame, salt, onion, garlic, maybe caraway, maybe pepper that’s typically used on “everything” bagels. It’s having quite the moment right now and is found on so much more than just bagels these days. You can buy it (Trader Joe’s sells a blend as does The Spice House) or you can make your own mix (recipe below).
Now that we’ve got those matters out of the way, there’s one more thing you need to know about this one. If you make the flavored dough ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze, the damn onions and garlic in the spice mix like to suck up the moisture in the dough and rehydrate. While it’s not the worst thing in the world, it is annoying as it makes for a dry dough that’s a bit more difficult to roll than the other upcoming flavors. So for the one, I prefer to flavor the dough and roll it right away. Just something to keep in mind.
To start: base cracker doughs
Day 1: Cheddar Old Bay Crackers
Day 2: Blue Cheese & Fig Crackers
Day 3: Goat Cheese & Chive Crackers
Day 4: Parmesan & Rosemary Crackers
Day 5: Mediterranean Olive Shortbread
Day 6: Apricot & Tarragon Shortbread
Day 7: Savory Shortbread Thumbprints
Day 8: Lemon Herbes de Provence Shortbread
EVERYTHING SPICE OLIVE OIL CRACKERS
Makes 6 sheets of crackers
¼ batch olive oil cracker base dough, room temperature
3 Tablespoons everything spice (purchased or see recipe below)
olive oil, for brushing
additional kosher or pretzel salt, if desired
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF and line several sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, break the base dough into several small pieces.
- Add about half of the everything spice and mix on low until everything starts to work in – maybe 30-60 seconds or so. Do not overmix.
- Turn the dough onto the counter and knead a few times to incorporate all the seasoning (including anything remaining in the bottom of the bowl.)
- Divide the dough into six pieces. Work with one piece, keeping the others covered with plastic wrap until needed, and roll thin. You have two ways to do this, I much prefer the pasta machine method but you can do it by hand.
- By hand – lightly flour the work surface and the top of the dough and using a heavy rolling pin, roll as thinly as possible.
- With a pasta machine – Roll one piece of dough through setting #1, fold in half and roll through again. Repeat this folding/rolling process a total of 4 times on #1.
- Change the setting to #2 and run through twice (do not fold), lightly flouring the dough if it appears sticky. Repeat this process, twice on each setting, through #5 then run it through once on #6.
- At this point, you’ll have a long, very thin cracker sheet. Cut in half if it’s too long to handle easily and place on the prepared sheetpan.
- Continue the same process with the remaining pieces of dough.
- Lightly brush each cracker sheet with olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining everything spice (plus more if you like) as well as an additional salt if you prefer.
- Bake for 7-8 minutes until golden brown and firm, rotating the pans front-to-back and top-to-bottom halfway through baking.
- Slide the parchment from the sheet pan and let the crackers cool on a wire rack.
- Once cool and crispy, break in shards.
- Crackers will keep, tightly wrapped, for 5 days.
- Do ahead: you have a bunch of options. Remember the holidays are stressful enough. Don’t add to it if you can help it.
- Base dough: refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months
- Flavored dough: as mentioned above, I don’t like to flavor this one too far ahead as the onions and garlic tend to pull moisture from the dough and rehydrate. But you certainly can if you like and refrigerate the dough for up to 2 days or freeze for 3 months.
HOMEMADE EVERYTHING SPICE
Makes about 2 ½ Tablespoons
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon dried onion flakes
1 teaspoon dried garlic flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or pretzel salt if you have it)
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