Sourdough Crackers

天然酵母葱饼

Revived my sourdough starter that was kept in the fridge for more than a year. Fed the starter with equal amounts of water and flour every 24 hours until it doubled in size on consequent days. Luckily, the starter was strong and it slowly sprung back to life. It became bubbly and tripled in size after 5 hours on the third day. In the feeding process, I collected a lot of sourdough discards, and a good way to use them up was to make crackers. So glad I found below recipe from King Arthur Baking. 

These crackers have a slight tangy taste due to the use of sourdough starter. But they are still very tasty!

Ingredients

227g sourdough discard (cold, straight from fridge)

113g Plain flour 

1/2 tsp sea salt flakes

2 tbsp dried herbs (oregano, thyme or basil)

57g butter (melted and warm)

Half portion

113.5g sourdough discard

56.5g plain flour

1/4 tsp 

1 tbsp dried herbs (I replaced with 12g fresh scallions/spring onions from my garden)

28.5g butter (melted and warm)

Method

1. Sieve flour into mixing bowl. Mix in the salt. 

2. Add butter and use the dough scrapper to quickly mix into the flour. Butter will coat the flour with fat which makes for a more tender cracker.

3. Add the starter and mix in using your fingers/dough scrapper. Then add the scallions and continue to mix until the dough almost comes together. If necessary, cover and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes for easier rolling.

4. Divide the dough into two pieces (for easier handling) while it is in the mixing bowl. 

5. Preheat oven to 170 degree celcius.

6. Take one piece of dough from the mixing bowl and cover the other piece with a cloth/cling wrap (to prevent drying) and place on benchtop/rolling mat (lightly floured with rice vinegar). Lightly dust the top of the dough with rice flour and shape the dough into a rectangular slab. Roll the dough to about 2 to 3cm thick and cut the dough into desired shapes. Prick each cut dough with the tines of a fork (to prevent the dough from puffing up). Transfer the cut dough into a baking tray (lined with parchment paper) and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the crackers are lightly browned. Note: to save some effort and time, the shaping/rolling/cutting can be done on a parchment paper. Then the dough and parchment paper transferred wholesale to the baking pan for baking. No need to separate the cut dough at all as the crackers will separate themselves as they bake.

7. Remove the crackers from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool. Once cooled, store in air tight container.