| |

Sourdough Crackers – Dairy Free Option

Jump to Recipe

We love savoury biscuits, and for me, the cheesy ones are my favourite, but they are expensive, in the quantity that my family of 8 can go through in one sitting! Hence Sourdough Crackers, now we can still go through a huge amount in one sitting, but because I have to make them, we eat less of them, unlike if I had boxes of savoury biscuits in the pantry as a free for all!

Sourdough Crackers in Jar

Everything in Moderation

We’re not big snackers in this household, I try and make good sized meals so that there’s no need for snacking, the kids have access to fresh (or canned at the end of the months) fruit and veg with a fairly unlimited potential whenever they want, but we do all love a good savoury snack, the kids also have rice cakes and rice crackers with hummus etc to eat.

But Darryl and I love wheat based crackers, or potato chips the most. I don’t buy much of them, because it is all too easy to sit down with a box or packet and eat through the entire thing, that moreish texture, the saltiness, yum! So, instead I try and bake us some crunchy/savoury (sometimes sweet, like my Sourdough Granola Clusters!) snacks intermittently, it means we eat less of them, but man to we enjoy them when we do.

Sourdough Crackers with Everything Bagel and Fresh sliced Tomato

Tips and ideas

Rolling out

There are lots of options when it comes to rolling out your crackers, my recipe leaves you with a fairly easy to handle dough, almost the texture of pasta, and because of this, my favourite way to roll them out is with my pasta attachment for my Kitchenaid. I love the really thin crispy texture that you can get going all the way down to the thinnest setting on the roller, that is my preferred texture for these.

Sourdough Crackers being rolled through a kitchenaid pasta roller

But not everyone in my household enjoys that same texture, Darryl much prefers it slightly thicker so that when it cooks it puffs slightly and is more reminiscent of the texture of a firm goldfish cracker or Arnott’s savoury shapes, to achieve that I hand roll the dough out onto a silicone liner (US affiliate link) as evenly as possible before cutting and baking it. The Thermomix cracker cutter works wonderfully for this, scoring it into a pattern so it will cook nice and evenly!

Sourdough Crackers rolled out on silicone and cut with Thermomix Cracker Cutter

Add ins for your Sourdough Crackers

I’ve tried a lot of flavour combinations in my Sourdough Crackers, and there’s a few things to remember. If you are going to roll your dough out with the pasta roller, larger seeds incorporated into the dough will make it tear, so things like Everything Bagel seasoning will need to be sprinkled rather than kneaded into the dough!

Likewise, some of the flavours that you add into the dough, just won’t give much of a hit, whereas if you were to sprinkle them on top, they’d hit your tongue before you started crunching on the biscuit and give a bit more of a stronger flavour.

The last lot I made I tried adding in some grana padano cheese I had to see if I could achieve a sort of cheesy flavour with a really hard cheese, it did flavour the dough somewhat, but I think it would need a lot more in there to really give you much of a cheesiness and a grated cheddar or something that could melt and create pockets in your crackers as they cooked would probably be much better, but I haven’t tried that because we don’t do cheese much in this household,

I have added nutritional yeast into them as well, but honestly, I prefer to make them plain, sprinkle a topping and use them to dip or with toppings, fresh beefsteak tomatoes sliced up in summer with these crackers and some fresh pesto… bliss!

So we have gone over the add in options, what about the add on options! When sprinkling something over the dough I find it beneficial to dampen the dough, sprinkle and give it a light press. Flaked salt is lovely, everything bagel seasoning is one of my favourites, we have also done salt and vinegar powder (If you grind the salt nice and fine to mix with the vinegar which is already fine, then it will sprinkle more evenly!) to give a salt and vinegar’esque flavour, as salt and vinegar is Darryl’s favourite savoury flavour.

Fat and Flour Choices

I make these crackers generally with all olive oil, that is my preference, I like that the consistency I get from that, but I have made it using half/half with ghee as well, I’ve never tried butter, but I assume it would work out similarly! I found the dough ended up a little more malleable, less able to be rolled through the pasta rollers and more suited to being rolled out on the silicone sheets and cut by hand, it was just a softer texture, this could be in part that as you handle the dough the butter/ghee is melting, if you refrigerated the dough and handled it as little as possible, you might avoid this, or alternatively, you could melt the butter/ghee and use it as a liquid and then you know how the dough will behave when warm, you could potentially add more flour to the dough to bump the texture to one more suited for the pasta roller, but I haven’t experimented, let me know if you do!

Sourdough Crackers collage
Sourdough Crackers with Everything Bagel and Fresh sliced Tomato

Sourdough Crackers – Dairy Free option with Olive Oil

Crisp crackers using sourdough starter or discard with a whole swathe of options for you to personalise!
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Resting Time 30 minutes
Course Snack

Ingredients
  

  • 300 g Starter at any point – discard or peak
  • 250 g Plain / AP Flour
  • 100 g Spelt / Whole Wheat Flour
  • 100 g Olive Oil
  • 2 Tbsp Dried Herbs Thyme is my favourite in these
  • 1 tsp Salt or to taste

Instructions
 

  • Throw everything into your vessel of choice for bringing the dough together, I use my Thermomix on sp 5 for about 20 seconds until it hits small ball stage.
    300 g Starter
    250 g Plain / AP Flour
    100 g Spelt / Whole Wheat Flour
    100 g Olive Oil
    2 Tbsp Dried Herbs
    1 tsp Salt
  • Tip it out onto a dough mat and knead until smooth and homogenous.
  • Cover, either in the bowl with a plastic bag, or beeswax cover or cover the disc in cling wrap, or place in a zip loc bag, you want it to maintain its moisture and allow the starter to hydrate the dough well, leave to rest at room temp for 30 mins minimum.
  • At this point you can put it in the fridge to deal with later if you like!
  • Roll it out in the manner you choose, I like to use my pasta roller, I take it from thick to thin and then lay it out on a silicone sheet and cut the shapes I desire.

Notes

*Substitutions – You do not have to use a wholewheat/spelt flour portion, you can just use all plain / all purpose, but I love the texture that the whole flour gives it, it gives it lovely little flecks through the dough and a bit more of a nutty flavour, I have tried using almond flour instead of the whole flour and that works quite well too, you may just have to adjust your liquid a little bit.
You can also swap out the olive oil for butter / ghee / oil of choice, but do take note of the texture of the dough when you do this, remember that butter and ghee when cold are going to be firmer than when warm, so potentially you want to store this in the fridge until rolling out and not have it sitting on the bench, or you could melt those ingredients before kneading the dough and then you know how it will behave while warm!
**In regard to herbs/spices, that is really personal preference, if you use anything with too larger a texture and are intending to use a pasta roller, it risks tearing the dough as you take it down thin, but if you are hand rolling, this is neither here nor there.
***This dough is very forgiving, it doesn’t need to rise, all it needs is to be able to be rolled out to the thickness you desire, so if you add something and the dough changes texture, either too crumbly or too wet, then add a little more flour, or a little more oil or work the dough a bit more and bring it back to the consistency that makes it easy to work with.
****I highly recommend keeping track of what flavours you want to use and what adaptations you end up making!  The consistency of your starter can also impact the end result.
Keyword crackers, dairy free, homemade snacks, olive oil, sourdough

You might also want to check out these recipes!

Apple Cinnamon Self Saucing Pudding DIY – How to make Brown Sugar at home Dutch Baby Pancake – Large Family Style

Similar Posts

4 Comments

    1. oh, I didn’t put a temp in! will have to fix that, you want to sit it round that 180c/350f mark, that cake baking temp, but check your oven, because the edges can cook quicker than the middle depending on how your oven heats! 😀

  2. Hi Nyssa, would love to have your different dairy free Cheese sauce recipes if possible ????

Comments are closed.