Friday, February 5, 2010

Sesame Flaxseed Crackers

Sesame seeds are well known part of several Asian and upto an extent in other cuisines where they are added on top of bagels,baked into crackers and made into sweets etc.They are a rich source of manganese,copper, magnesium and calcium.Health benefits apart,they add a nutty and rich taste to the dishes.I had baked them into simple crackers which had the additional goodness of flaxseeds and sunflower seeds as well.The recipe is adapted from Jude of Applepiepatispate' where she had baked from 'Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads'.As ususal I halved the original recipe.


Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Flour: 14 tbsp
Sesame Seeds: 3 tbsp (Mix of black and white)
Salt: 1/4 tsp or to taste

Sunflower Seeds : 3 tbsp powdered
Flax seeds: 1.5 tbsp powdered

Water: 5tbsp+/-
Vegetable/Canola oil: 1 tbsp
Honey: 1 tbsp


Optional spices: pepper,chilli powder/cayenne pepper,paprika

Preparation:
Mix all the dry ingredients including salt and then add the water,oil and honey.Form a firm dough .Add more water if needed to form into a dough or oil if you feel it is too dry.The recipe mentioned around half cup of water which on halving came to 1/4 cup of 4 tbsp.It took 1 more tbsp for me to form a dough.

Knead the dough for 3 minutes.


Rest it for atleast 20 minutes.


Then divide the dough into 2 balls. Though I halved the recipe I followed this step as well as this way I can control the thickness of the rectangle being rolled out.


Take a dough ball and placing it in parchment/butter paper or oiled wooden surface,roll it out into a thin rectangle (1/8 inch thin will give you a medium thick cracker while 1/16 can make crispy cracker). You can roll it out depending on the length of the baking sheet you are using for baking these.
(Er,mine is not exactly a rectangle,but thin)
Transfer the rectangle on to a baking sheet preferably greased or if you are using butter/parchment for rolling out carefully tranfer the paper on to the baking sheet.


Using a pizza wheel or your choice of cutter,cut the rectangle to get your choice of shape.Do not completely cut,but leave markings.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 10 minutes first and then depending on the brownness of the cracker for additional 5-10 minutes,rotating the pan in between.I went for the first 10 minutes,then rotated the pan and went for additional 7 minutes of baking to get the desired brownness.Here again the brownness depends on the thickness of the dough rectangle.

First Look..


Take out and optionally glaze with honey water (2 tbsp honey+ 2 tbsp warm water mixed together) and then let them cool completely which will make the more crisper.I did not use the glaze as it would have made the crackers a bit sweeter.Instead I sprinkled fresh black pepper on top of some or even served some plain like that.


The crackers were hearty and healthy and whats more my daughter loved these.So I can see myself making these more often.For spicing up I would suggest adding the spices while making the dough though its not in the original recipe.

Another interesting thing about the recipe was the oven temperature was just 350F.I have seen several cracker recipes with oven temp of 400F or more but this recipe surely worked with this temperature.Obviously the crackers are on way to hardworking blogger Priya's CWS:Sesame.

19 Comments:

MaryMoh said...

Looks crunchy and flavourful. I would love to try this. Thanks for sharing. For your info, you can adjust settings to your comment box to allow for 'Name/URL' so that more people will leave comments

chef and her kitchen said...

Those crackers look gr8 dear..loved those crispy stack of crackers..

Priya Suresh said...

Beautiful and crunchy crackers CL..bet it would have tasted fantastic na...lovely...

Shama Nagarajan said...

cruncy crackers...yummy

jayasree said...

Healthy, crunchy, guilt free snack..Bookmarked.

FH said...

WOW! Look fabulous. Perfect evening snack with coffee.

Sum Raj said...

woo crackers looks sooo healthy indeed and ur strawberry bread also looks soo tempting..never heard of that..

Cham said...

Nice and crunchy crackers!

Ramya Vijaykumar said...

Lovely crunchy crackers super healthy and crispy too!!!

dining table said...

This is one healthy cracker! I hope my kids will like this so that they will switch from popcorn to these crackers.

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

These look great. Remember seeing these at Jude's blog.

Nithu Bala said...

looks too great :-) I love it Dear..you have a wonderful space and I'm happy to follow you..
(nithubala-recipes.blogspot.com)

shahana said...

Wow!! the crackers looks perfect dear!!!

Unknown said...

Dear ExperimentsEmotionsExperiences, the sesame flaxseed crackers look fantastic! I am sending my dad this recipe now that I found it. OMG! Incredible presentation. Loved your site, very professional. Photos were crisp and clear. Recipes concise and easy to read. I shall be back for a bite of more.
Thank you for sharing.
Cheers, Gaby
You can visit me at http://ptsaldari.posterous.com

Indhu said...

lovely recipe... the crackers look brown and they are very inviting!

RV @ Food for 7 Stages said...

wow.. lovely crackers... sounds healthy too...

Sophie said...

These look so much tastier than what could be purchased at the store, healthier too. They look crunchy and tasty :).

Anonymous said...

Nice blog as for me. I'd like to read a bit more about that topic. Thank you for sharing that information.

Anonymous said...

Madhuram, tasty photos! I wonder if you'd chance making a "dehydrated" version?
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This method takes longer than baking at 350 though. i.e. I grind flax seeds and herbs and spices, add water, set out on an enamel surface (coated lightly with almond oil) and dry in my oven that has a continuous gas pilot (or if you own one, an electric dehydrator). I love to add diced onions to this. Good for when there is no need to turn on the oven (i.e. in the summertime.)
- Chana
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