Cracking Crackers

Serves: 10
Course: Side Dish
Cooking Time: 1 hr 20 mins

Ingredients

  • (makes about 24 crackers)
  • 135g sunflower seeds
  • 90g flax seeds
  • 50g pumpkin seeds
  • 150g rolled oats, GF if you need to
  • 2 tbsp chia seeds
  • 2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 60g psyllium seed husks (most health stores have these)
  • 1 ½ tsp sea or Himalayan pink salt
  • 3 tbsp melted coconut oil
  • 350ml boiling water

Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Next, add the coconut oil to the boiling water so it melts. Once this has melted, add this to the dry ingredients and mix well to form a wettish dough-like substance. It’s kind of cement- like.

Line two baking trays with parchment paper. Divide the dough in two and place it in the two baking trays. Smooth it out with a spatula. If the mix is being really uncooperative, sprinkle with water, so it gets a bit wetter and spreads more easily. It just means you’ll have to cook them for longer. Press down the mix roughly so it spreads out.

Place a second sheet of parchment paper on top of this and carefully apply pressure to make the mixture thinner and so that it covers the whole tray.

When that’s done, keep the paper on it and bake the trays at 170 degrees for 30 minutes. If you can, use a flat surface to flip them over (like you would one half of a cake) and bake them for another 10 minutes.

If you find the outside bits are going nice and brown, but the inside is a bit “raw”, break off the cooked bits and keep cooking the middle. They really need to be crisp and golden brown, not raw, wet or soft. Leave them to cool fully before breaking up into rough squares or rectangles for serving.

Domini Kemp

Domini Kemp

Domini Kemp, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a chef and food writer