You would think after the seeded bread I made last week that I would be done with seeds. But… nooooooo! I have a problem with a short memory span. You see, I felt annoyed that I spilled seeds all over the kitchen when I was baking the bread. I then became more annoyed when seeds spilled all over my oven and I burned them. Seeds spilled everywhere when I cut into the loaf and each time I cut into it thereafter. Maximum annoyance. I cleaned up all of these seeds, but somehow, they kept reappearing. They found nooks and crannies to inhabit. Some of them thought the microwave was a nice spot to sit under. Some of them got on the floor and became world travelers showing up in bathrooms and bedrooms. My counters looked clean to me but I kept finding seeds in the grout of the tiles.
I wanted to make the seeded bread again this week and just skip making something new for YeastSpotting. (It was so good that I didn’t care what price I’d pay for another loaf). The problem is that we never finished the first loaf and I kept waiting for it to be eaten before committing a full day to a loaf of bread. Thursday showed up, no bread. I was looking in a cabinet and spied a box of our favorite crackers. These are really special crackers. Made of Spelt and covered in seeds, they are delicious! I came to the realization that they are an extravagance. We have been paying $6.89 for an 8 oz container of these crackers which we can easily polish off in a week. After figuring this out, it has been on my to do list to bake crackers. Today was the day.
The first thing I did was decide on the seeds. I thought an exotic mixture would be nice. I would mix sesame, poppy, fennel and for a little kick, brown mustard seeds. The brown mustard seeds come in a small Ziploc plastic bag. I opened the bag to measure out the seeds, something slipped and about a tablespoon of mustard seeds went flying, over the counters, onto the floor, into crevices, into my clothes (so that I could easily help them become world travelers). I took a deep breath. Gave up on immediate containment and proceeded with the recipe. My next error was to believe I could get the seeds to stick to the crackers without anything to bind them to the surface of the cracker. I somehow thought I could sprinkle the seed mixture on and then push the seeds into the surface of the cracker. Since I have the muscle tone of Napolean Dynamite’s brother Kip, that did not work out well. If I kept the fully baked crackers horizontal, the seeds stayed put, as soon as I moved them or tilted them in any way: disaster! So when I transcribe the recipe for you, I am going to tell you to make an egg wash to stick the seeds on. I have not tested it, but it worked for the bread last week so I’m hoping it will be fine.
I enjoyed these crackers as a light lunch today, (held horizontally to keep the seeds on), topped with a fine quality aged cheddar and Fuji apple slices. The crackers taste like flaky whole grain pie crust with the savory bite of the seed blend. They went so well with the cheese and fruit!
I am submitting these sourdough crackers to this week’s YeastSpotting event. Click on the link to see what everyone baked this week!
Seeded Sourdough Crackers
Crackers:
1 ½ cups stone ground whole wheat flour
½ cup rye flour
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp flax seeds
¼ cup cold butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup active sourdough starter
Topping:
4 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp poppy seeds
*Egg wash made with an egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water
Preheat oven to 375 degrees, F.
In a large bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, rye flour, salt and flax seeds. Using a pastry cutter, cut cold butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse corn meal. Make a well in the flour mixture. Pour in the oil and sourdough starter. Mix with a silicone spatula until well combined. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and lightly knead to make sure all the flour and liquid is mixed well. Do not over knead, you just want to make sure everything is combined. Form dough into a ball, flatten and roll out to 1/8” thick. Using a 2” round cookie cutter, cut dough into circles. Transfer crackers to two parchment lined cookie sheets as you cut crackers. Using a fork, pierce the crackers three times. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds. You will have lots of scraps. When you are done cutting the first round of crackers, gather the scraps and carefully press them back into a ball (do not over work the dough), flatten dough and roll out to 1/8”, proceed with cutting more crackers and topping them with seeds. You can do this with the scraps a couple of times until most of the dough is used up. Once all of the crackers have been cut and seeded, transfer the cookie sheets to the hot oven. Bake for 13 – 15 minutes until browned, rotating the sheets from the upper to the lower racks of your oven halfway during baking for even browning. Remove crackers from the oven and transfer to racks to cool completely before enjoying.
*I did not brush an egg wash onto the crackers. The pictures are a sham! The seeds did not stick to the crackers. I have not tested an egg wash on this recipe, but this method worked for the bread I baked last week. It should work fine.
That is the fun of getting into the kitchen to experiment! At this point, I think the best pancakes for waffles are the ones that make the flattest thinnest pancakes. If it is a pancake that could double as a crepe, toss that batter in the waffle iron instead because I bet you’ll end up with little bit of heaven on your plate.
The demise of an icon
November 11, 2009 at 12:14 am (Commentary)
I’ve stayed silent for weeks on this subject but writing about what makes you really sad is a good way to work through your emotions. Seven decades was not enough. This publication, so dear to me, was a chameleon, changing with the eras it spanned but always remaining relevant. It could have gone on indefinitely. Gourmet, I will miss you so much!
I began subscribing to Gourmet in the early 1990’s. The magazine was so vibrant. Unlike anything I had ever seen. So beautiful and it opened up worlds to me that I never knew existed. I knew how to cook, but the caliber of the recipes taught me how to cook well. The pictures were ethereal and unworldly. The articles traveled to faraway places I could only dream of seeing. The voices of writers like Laurie Colwin, Gerald Asher and Fred Ferretti were so real it was like having friends tell you stories about their adventures. Through them, I would eventually find my own voice too.
I do have to admit to falling briefly out of love with the publication when Ruth Reichl took over the helm as editor. Gone were my favorite writers in favor of essays by strangers. She extricated the lush travel articles heavy on ethnic food recipes in favor of writing that was more introverted and experiential about food itself. She started adding more and more writing and less and less recipes even taking away a well loved feature called the last word (which caused such an uproar that she had to add it back). There were growing pains during this time. Who doesn’t resist change and we readers were used to what we knew. However, as we put our trust in Ms. Reichl, the magazine changed and became stronger. Which is why the decision Condé Nast made so suddenly last month to abruptly halt publication on the magazine was such a shock.
Gourmet will be gone after the November issue and we could have a consolation prize in it’s stead. Subscribers were offered Bon Appétit. Bon Appétit: a magazine I cancelled for $1 an issue, a magazine I cancelled after receiving it free for a year. I apologize in advance for saying rotten things about a magazine that is probably someone’s favorite magazine, but whereas Gourmet had pictures of food that made you hungry, Bon Appétit has pictures of overcooked food that looks like someone dropped the casserole dish before it was photographed. Very hipster. To me, the writing isn’t much better. The recipes? Fat and sugar do not always create a recipe with depth of character. I prefer much more subtle flavors. I declined taking this magazine as a substitution. It could hardly replace a publication I couldn’t wait to read cover to cover each month.
Why did I wait so long to vent my frustration in a public forum? Being a romantic, I thought there would be an uproar. I really did. I thought that legions of Gourmet subscribers would rise up in anger and save the magazine from extinction. As I peruse the odes to Gourmet on other blogs, I detect an apathy instead. Some people hate to see it go, some people don’t really care. Some people thought the magazine was a dinosaur, espousing a lifestyle too rich for the normal person to live and recipes too complicated to cook at home. But in argument: That was the point! We could travel without leaving the house. We could eat like kings without dropping a paycheck at a restaurant! But there you have it. Nobody is going to rise up and revolt. Nobody is angry. Nobody is sad. We have too many other problems in the world. Things are so generally bad that caring about the end of something iconic is trivial.
In my own revolutionary little way, I told the girl on the phone at Gourmet how much I loved the magazine and informed her that if it had survived I would have subscribed for life. I would have kept sending a gift subscription to my best friend for life. I was so fervent with my words that the girl on the phone thought I was a nutcase and politely said she duly noted my comment. That was how I championed my favorite magazine as it faded away.
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