Use your sourdough discard to make my colourful, flavourful, whole wheat tumeric and nigella seeds crackers for your snacking pleasure.
Tumeric Nigella Seeds Sourdough Discard Crackers
I am about one month shy of one year working from home, due to the pandemic - it feels like yesterday, but also like forever ago.
Like a number of folks stuck at home, in the early days of the pandemic, I revived my sourdough starter and baked up batards, boules and baguettes of pure carb pleasure. In an instant, I went from baking the occasional sourdough, to sourdough supplier for family, friends and neighbours.
All that sourdough-ing meant lots of sourdough starter feedings and resulting discard. Discard serves as a great addition to our compost, but we also like it in waffles/pancakes, cookies, banana bread, muffins, cakes... Well, you get the picture, just about any baked goods, including the star of today's post, crackers!
Name Your Flavour
I'll share some of the countless sourdough bread I have baked throughout the pandemic, but have only shared on Instagram. First, I want to ease back into blogging with what I think may be my 100th batch of sourdough discard crackers. The sourdough discard crackers I make at any given feeding, tend to mirror the flavour of the bread I making at that time. This batch, fashioned after one of my most requested sourdough, is flavoured with tumeric powder and nigella seeds - flavours that remind me of a number of dishes from my childhood.
Tumeric, with its wealth of health benefits, adds a warm, earthy flavour and bright, cheery yellow. It pairs perfectly with nigella seeds, which lend distinct herbaceous notes, toasted onion flavour and a speckled effect to the crackers. Also known as kalonji and charnushka, nigella seeds are a spice often incorrectly referred to as black caraway, black cumin and black onion seeds.
If this turmeric and nigella combo doesn't suit your taste, switch it up. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. But if you need more inspiration, I'll share a few others in future posts.
Shape Things Up
Your standard square or rectangle shapes are a great place to start, or you can mix things up with whatever cookie cutter shapes you have on hand. I love to cut them into long strips and package them in tubes for gifting. I once forgot to poke holes in the dough and the strips puffed up while baking to resemble straws. Now I do it on purpose from time to time.
If you just can't be botherd with shaping and cutting, roll the dough out, brush with a flavoured or plain oil, sprinkle with sea salt flakes and bake as one sheet. Once baked, break into shards and snack away. They make a great addition to cheeseboards.
Here's the recipe and video, if you would like to give them a try. Look forward to hearing from you after you have tried them!
Tips For Success
This recipe is rather simple, but here a few things I do and recommend for success:
- I mix the dough by hand, much like I do when making sourdough bread - without the technical steps.
- chill the dough - I refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour and sometimes overnight, if I am not in the mood to bake them that night. The flavour seems to develop more when I leave it overnight.
- roll dough to an even thickness - I use dough thickness guides/rails. They come in a set of three sizes for cookies, galettes and pies/tarts. I like the 2mm size for these crackers.
- use freeze-dried powders, herbs and spices to add flavour and colour.
Ingredients
- 113 grams spelt or whole wheat flour organic, stone-ground
- 227 grams sourdough starter discard
- 2.5 grams salt kosher
- 57 grams unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- 7 grams turmeric powder
- 10 grams nigella seeds
- oil for brushing
- flaked salt for topping
Instructions
- Scale all ingredients into a bowl.
- Mix by hand until the dough comes together and is smooth.
- Divide the dough in half, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 1 hour. I usually leave it overnight.
- Heat the oven to 350ºF.
- Remove chilled dough from fridge. Lightly flour your silicone mat or parchment sheet and rolling pin and roll out the dough to a uniformed thickness of about 2mm.
- Place the sheet with the dough onto a baking sheet pan, brush dough with oil and use a fork to pierce holes randomly throughout the dough.
- Cut desired shapes with a pastry wheel or cookie cutters and space out on the same sheet. Sprinkle with salt.
- Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the halfway point.
- When ready, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
- Enjoy or store in an airtight container at room temperature. They also freeze well.
Leave a Reply