Wholemeal wheat thins

One of the food blogs I religiously read is Smitten Kitchen. I love Deb’s laid-back approach to family cooking and the wonderful creations that come out of her small New York kitchen. I particularly love her homemade versions of snacks you might secretly buy at the supermarket checkout.

Her whole wheat goldfish crackers have been on my list of recipes to try for a while, but when her homemade wheat thins popped into my inbox I was running to the kitchen immediately!

With a food processor you can make these mini crackers super fast (if you don’t have one, follow Deb’s instructions to mix the dough by hand). Most of your preparation time will be rolling and cutting. If you’re a bit short of time, only roll out half of the mixture and keep the rest of the dough in the fridge to make the next day (or even freeze the remaining dough). You don’t need to make the dotted pattern on each cracker, but it does look cute!

I adapted Deb’s recipe slightly. I replaced the sugar with honey. I know, I have this thing against sugar when making things for Nicholas. Actually there’s very little sugar in the original recipe, but I still prefer substituting something a bit more natural and less refined. Honey’s also sweeter so you can use less, and after using it for a while now, I actually prefer its richer more mellow flavour to the harsher stronger taste of refined sugar. Anyway, enough of my honey rant!

As Deb says, you can use white flour and the result will be a lighter texture. I also can’t wait to try these again adding some onion or garlic powder, or some dried herbs. You could also make them cheesy.

I cut my thins smaller, mainly for Nicholas’ tiny hands but also so I wouldn’t feel guilty if a couple of them just happened to find their way into my mouth 😉

WHOLEMEAL WHEAT THINS

Prep time: 15-20 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 130
Keep in an airtight container for a week
Freezable (both the cooked thins and the uncooked dough)

1 1/4 cups (155 grams) wholemeal plain flour
1  tbsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
Additional salt for topping (optional)
1/4 tsp paprika
4 tbsp (55 grams) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup (60ml) cold water

Heat the oven to 200C and line an oven tray with baking paper.

Put the flour, honey, 1/2 tsp salt, paprika and butter into a food processor. Blend the mixture until it’s combined and the butter is evenly disbursed.

With the motor running, slowly pour in the cold water and blend until the mixture comes together into a  ball.

Take the dough out of the processor and divide it in half. Roll out one half of the dough as thin as you can (rolling the dough out over a piece of cling film makes sure it doesn’t stick to your bench and be generous with the flour on your rolling pin). The thinner you can roll it, the crisper your thins will be.

Cut rectangles about 2.5cm by 2cm using a knife, a pastry wheel or even a pizza cutter. Place them close together on your prepared tray and use a skewer or toothpick to poke some dots into each one (I poked three dots from top to bottom on both sides and two dots in the middle). Sprinkle with extra salt, if using.

Bake for 7 – 10 mins until golden brown and crisp (keep a close eye on them as they cook quickly).

Variations:

• add onion or garlic powder to the mixture
• add some dried herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary, etc.) to the mixture
• add some grated cheddar or parmesan to the mixture
• use white plain flour for a lighter texture

Tip: if your thins start getting soft, pop them back into the oven to crisp up for a couple of minutes.