Friday 27 July 2012

Daring Bakers - July 2012

This is challenge Nr. 4.

It was chosen by Dana McFarlane and it is about crackers!

The given recipes, as our guides, were savoury. Yet when I think "baking" I immediately think "sugar and/or chocolate".
I looked around the Internet a bit and I found a couple of recipes, that I thought were worth trying. So I decided to make Graham Crackers and Chocolate Graham Crackers.

Old-Fashioned Graham Crackers 
(slightly adapted from Epicurious.com)

The original recipe calls for turbinado sugar, which I didn't have. I used light brown sugar instead.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
125gr butter (room temp.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup water (twice)

In a bowl mix flours, cinnamon, soda and salt. Beat with the paddle attachment the butter sugars until fluffy. Add 1/3 of flours mixture and 1/4 cup water. Mix for 30 sec. Repeat. Mix for 30 sec. Add the remaining 1/3 flours and mix just until combined.
Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of parchment paper to about 1/2 cm thick. Put it in the fridge for 30 min.
Using a cookie cutter cut the crackers and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat until all the dough is used up. Sprinkle each cracker with a pinch of brown sugar  and salt.
Bake in a preheated oven for 20 min, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, until the crackers are golden around the edges.
Let them cool for 10 min on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack.

Light brown sugar.
Flours.
Butter.
The dough is not very sticky.
Chilled.

I cut both round and square crackers.
.

They are very tasty and crispy!

The roll and cut method was one aspect of the Challenge.

The other was the slice and bake method. For this I had to use cocoa (naturally!).

Chocolate Graham Crackers
(slightly adapted from Weelicious.com)

This recipe calls for dark brown sugar, but I had light brown, so I used this.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup light brown sugar.
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
125gr butter chilled and cubed
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water

Mix the flours, cocoa, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Add butter and mix until it looks coarse. Add honey and water and mix until it is combined.
Place a sheet of parchment paper on your counter and on top some cling film. Put the dough in the cling film and make a log. Cover it with the cling film and put it in the fridge for at least 30 min.
Remove log from the fridge and using a very sharp knife cut slices.
Bake for 15 min in a preheated oven 180o C. Let the crackers cool for 10 min, then put them on a wire rack.

.
I realised that I should have cut them thinner. Other than that, though, their taste is so rich and the aroma of chocolate combined with cinnamon..... OMG!

This was a very interesting Challenge. I am going to make savoury crackers as well, because the photos of my fellow Bakers are mouthwatering!!

Thank you Dana!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your crackers look delicious!! I never thought of doing a sweet cracker. I am going to try the chocolate grahm crackers, they sound great!

Anonymous said...

They both look tasty, looks like I'll be making some chocolate graham crackers!

Korena said...

How have I not heard of chocolate graham crackers before? They look delicious!

Bourbonnatrix said...

i wish i had taken the time to make sweet crackers! yours look delish!

What's for dessert? said...

OMG, chocolate crackers!!