Sourdough crackers

I am glad to report that my passion for sourdough bread making has continued. So much so that I would say 90% of the time I am eating my own sourdough bread for breakfast (rye with lashings of butter and damson jam) and sometimes for lunch as well. If I'm not eating the bread, then I can almost certainly be found eating sourdough crackers with strong cheese and a flick of chutney. The sourdough crackers have gone down tremendously well with everyone I have shared them with. In fact I have to limit how many I put out as they will all be gone if I turn away. The recipe below makes a large quantity of crackers, say around 30. They do take a while to roll out and bake, I think I have got it down to just over an hour to get through the whole batch of dough. However, they store very well, so it's worth making a batch which should last you at least a month... Well, saying that, if you like them as much as everyone seems to, they may disappear a lot quicker!

Image © Charlotte Tolhurst

Sourdough Crackers as taught to me by Jane Mason, original recipe Helene Johannson from the Brunkebergs Bageri.

500g full fat milk
40g honey
30g rye sourdough starter
500g light rye flour
250g white wheat flour
20g salt
5g bicarb of soda
10g ground fennel (or ginger, cinnamon, cumin, caraway. I use whole fennel seeds)

*Combine ingredients and knead for 10-15 minutes. It will be very sticky so a scraper is recommended.
*Pop the dough in a bowl and cover and let it rest overnight.
*The next day divide the dough into little balls of 50g or so, the size of a ping pong ball.
*Flour the board well with rye flour and roll very thinly into flat rounds or oblongs. Prick liberally with a fork, a pokey swedish rolling pin or, in my case, a meat tenderiser as pictured below.
*Transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper.
*Spray with water and sprinkle with any of salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, caraway seeds or dried herbs.
*Bake at 210˚ for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool completely on wire rack.

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New year new resolutions

Guess what one of my new year's resolutions is? Yep, to update my blog more, shoot more of my own recipes for it and get tweeting. It occurred to me that I really do cook a fair bit, visit supper clubs and restaurants, attend cooking courses and in the course of all this activity find myself having something to say about things. So, why not write about it. It'll be a good diary for myself of my exploits and hopefully of use to others. So here goes.

Linking up nicely to the idea of new year's resolutions, one of my many 2011 resolutions was to learn how to bake sourdough bread. Come November this had not been ticked off the list. Then I came across Jane Mason's one day sourdough course which happened to be on a Saturday I was free, in November, thus still in time to fulfill my 2011 resolve. I booked it immediately hardly even reading up on what it entailed. In hindsight I suppose it was just meant to be. What a wholly inspiring, fun, carb laden day it was. Here some snaps to give an idea of things.

Not only did we learn how to make rye and wheat sourdough breads and sourdough crackers, Jane had also prepared various breads and cakes to eat during the day and gladly shared each recipe with us as we all scribbled madly in our notebooks. She also made thoroughly sure we all fully comprehended how to refresh our starter and tend to it, or rather not tend to it. Not capable of keeping up household tasks on a regular basis, I was excited to hear her sourdough method does not require laborious daily feeding of your starter. You simply need to remember to wake a portion of it up the day before you want to bake.

Since the course I have been madly baking with varied results. Or rather, myself and my flatmate love what I bake, but others who are more used to white fluffy tasteless loaves, I sense, need to get used to "proper" bread. Loaves are handed over to friends and family with statements like "you know this is better for you?" in the hope this will aid their appreciation. I am glad to report that by Christmas the naysayers had been converted at least in part by my mini rye loaves, which were great sliced thinly topped with smoked salmon and provided great fuel during present opening. Below my spelt and rye sourdough loaves.

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