Sourdough Crackers

Click here to go straight to the recipe

I had hoped to write a blog about sourdough starter for my first post. And then my second. Then my third. (This is post twenty-six.)

You can probably find entire books devoted to starter alone. There’s so much to know and food scientists today still make discoveries about the ecosystem of sourdough cultures. I find the idea of writing a blog about starter daunting. But I use it for many recipes and my starter—I named it Eleanor, after Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings, mother of three—has become a big part of my routine, almost like a pet. In fact, I think I now have more pictures on my phone of starter, dough and bread than I do of my children. I had a different starter last year, Heloise (of Abelard and Heloise), but I let her die. She wasn’t perky.

You too may begin to sound nuts if you decide to nurture a starter of your own.

So, I’ve decided to go ahead and write some blogs on recipes that call for the starter before I actually get around to writing the blog about the starter. But first, a condensed how-to based on Michael Pollan’s recipe in Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

Starter 101

People have been baking bread for approximately 6,000 years. Until about 200 years ago, when commercial yeast appeared on the market, they baked with a sourdough starter—or wild yeast. The starter makes the dough rise (among many other things, which I can’t cover in what I’m trying to keep short).

Combine flour and warm water. Mix 100 grams of flour (I use 50 grams whole wheat, 50 grams white) with 100 grams of warm water in a bowl and stir it vigorously with a fork. It will have a consistency similar to pancake batter. Cover it with a cloth. If you mix your starter in a glass bowl, you can better observe the bubbles that form. (You may begin to feel more like a scientist than a baker in your kitchen.)

Set your starter aside and stir it once or twice a day or whenever you think of it. Check it daily for bubbling. Those bubbles mean that the dormant microbes in your flour have revived in order to transform your mixture into a living culture, filled with good bacteria and yeasts.

Once you notice bubbling, feed the starter daily. My starters begin bubbling after a couple of days, but it can take a week. To feed the starter, you need to discard about 80 percent of it (but don’t throw it out!). Mix in another 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of warm water into the remaining two or three tablespoons of starter. After about five days to a week of feeding your starter regularly, you can use it in recipes.

Maintain your starter. Some bakers swear that you must feed your starter twice daily, at 12-hour intervals. Sandor Katz says every two or three days will suffice. I’ve tried once a day and I’ve tried twice a day. I haven’t noticed much difference either way but I’m not a professional baker.

If you want a break from the daily care of your starter or you won’t use it for while, put it in the refrigerator and feed it once a week. Take it out, let it warm up, feed it and allow it to ferment for a few (or several) hours before returning it to the fridge.

I never throw my discarded starter away. I store it in the fridge for other recipes. Sometimes I feel like Mickey Mouse from Fantasia in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but deluged with starter rather than water. If you don’t use your discarded starter—and like me, the thought of throwing it out horrifies you—it will take over your fridge.

My starter above, ready for action.

Sourdough Resources

For more information on starting a starter, check out this helpful video from Cultures for Health. I also recommend the following books, which all cover fermentation or sourdough:

• Cooked by Michael Pollan
• The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz
• Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

And now a recipe! (Phew!)

Sourdough Crackers

UPDATE: I made a few small revisions to the recipe below. You can read that post here.

These crackers are delicious. The microbes in the starter transform a handful of ordinary ingredients into dough that renders thin, crisp crackers that taste—believe it or not—cheesy. I’ve had to put the finished product aside as I write this, as I’ve scarfed down way too many.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup unfed starter from the refrigerator
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (or butter or olive oil, but I prefer coconut oil for the flavor and aroma)
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• olive oil for topping (not shown)
• extra coarse salt for topping (not shown)

I bought everything in bulk, filling either cloth bags or glass jars, except the coconut oil and olive oil. I’ll reuse their glass jars though. And I actually can buy (and have bought) those oils in bulk at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Combine starter and coconut oil in a glass bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking soda.

3. Add dry ingredients to bowl with wet ingredients. Combine.

4. You may have to knead the dough a few times to incorporate the last bit of flour. Cover bowl with a plate or towel and let rest overnight or for at least eight hours. This will help develop a rich, sour flavor. You can move onto the next step now, but the crackers will taste better if you wait.

5. Divide dough into two (brain-like) halves on a generously floured surface.

6. Roll the dough out two to three millimeters thick. Once again, the microbes work their magic by making the dough easy to handle and roll out so thinly. Use quite a bit of flour when rolling out this somewhat sticky dough. I should probably chill it like pastry an hour before I roll it out. Maybe next time…

7. At this point, I transfer the dough to a Silpat, a silicone baking mat. If you don’t have these, you may want to lightly grease your cookie sheets. Using a pastry brush, brush sheet of dough with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt.

8. Cut into rectangles with a pizza cutter. (I’ve had this plastic one since before I starting purging the plastic.) Because my cookie sheets have a lip on them, the large wheel of my pizza cutter bumps up against the lip before it cuts all of the dough. So, I cut the dough on the Silpat before transferring everything to the cookie sheet. Do not cut with a sharp metal blade on your Silpat.

9. Bake for 8 minutes, turn tray and bake 8 minutes longer.

10. Transfer baked crackers to a rack to cool. As you can see, the crackers shrink quite a bit in the oven. Keep in mind also that the edges usually brown faster than the middle.

Store crackers in an airtight container. You don’t actually need to worry about them going stale though. They will disappear quickly!

Sourdough Crackers

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup unfed starter from the refrigerator
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (or butter or olive oil, but I prefer coconut oil for the flavor and aroma)
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• olive oil for topping
• extra coarse salt for topping

Directions

1. Combine starter and coconut oil in a glass bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking soda.

2. Add dry ingredients to bowl with wet ingredients. Combine. If necessary, knead the dough a few times to incorporate the last bit of flour. Cover bowl with a plate or towel and let rest overnight or for at least eight hours to develop flavor.

3. After the dough has rested for 8 hours, divide it into two halves on a generously floured surface.

4. Preheat oven to 350°F.

5. Roll the dough out two to three millimeters thick. Sprinkle with flour between rollings to prevent dough from sticking to surface.

6. Transfer the dough to Silpat-lined cookie sheets or lightly greased cookie sheets. Using a pastry brush, brush sheet of dough with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt.

7. Cut into rectangles with a pizza cutter. Do cut with sharp objects if using a Silpat.

8. Bake for 8 minutes, turn trays and bake 8 minutes longer. Crackers are done when crispy and slightly browned.

9. Transfer crackers to a rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.