Crackers

First it was Mark Bittman in the New York Times, and then Alton Brown on good eats. Both were extolling the virtues of home made crackers. I had made some about 3 weeks ago, and they were pretty good - I just needed more motivation. There is also a key insight - use the pasta maker to roll them out.

So today I made simple crackers rolled in the pasta machine. They turned out very well indeed.

Ingredients
1 Cup AP flour
2t baking soda
1t cream of tartar
4oz frozen butter, grated
3 oz Parmesan, grated finely
2T Hot Basil seeds
1/4 Cup quark
2T whole wheat flour
1/4 Cup 1% milk
2T Olive oil

Method
Preheat the oven to 425, and set the shelf to the middle rack. Pulse the flour, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar about 10 1 second pulses. Add the parmesan and pulse 3 more times. Then the basil seeds and a quick pulse. Mix in the quark, milk and add whole wheat flour to get the texture to that of shortcrust pastry.

Divid3e the dough into quarters. Roll each quarter a few times through the widest setting of thae pasta maker, then take it down 2 steps. Place the rolled ribbn on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Score the dough so it will break cleanly and bake in a 425 oven for about 12 minutes, turning at the 6 minute mark.

Remove from the oven when golden brown and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, store in an air tight tin.