Herbed Sourdough Crackers

Making a traditional loaf of sourdough bread has been on my very long baking to do list for several years now.  So, with all my time spent at home right now and the temperature warming up just enough to make the farmhouse kitchen more hospitable to a starter, I decided to finally take the plunge and give it a go.

My starter has been named Gus and is healthy and happy here in the farmhouse. I’ll be sharing how I created my starter, maintain it, and use it in recipes soon in case you would like to give it a try.  I still have a bit of learning ahead of me before I have enough personal experience to share with you. Stay tuned for those posts coming to our Bread Baking section soon.

In the meantime, I do have a few sourdough recipes that are ready to share with all of you who, like me, have a starter already taking shape or being maintained. One of the first lessons my sourdough starter taught me was that the process of feeding and maintaining a sourdough starter leaves you with what feels like an unending supply of sourdough discard.

What is discard? Well, it is simply the portion of your sourdough starter that is poured off before a feeding.  At the beginning of the process, that happens once or twice a day every day. When you feed your starter, you remove most of what is in the starter’s jar or container before feeding it an equal amount of flour and water. In order to keep the amount of active starter being fed manageable, most of it is poured of, or discarded, before a feeding.  That meant I was adding almost a cup of discard to my discard every day for a few weeks.

Sourdough discard is worth repurposing. While it might not be fed and ready to proof a large batch of bread dough, it can add delicious flavor and lovely texture to recipes. It’s ideally suited for recipes that either don’t require a rise or have added yeast to help the dough to rise. That makes crackers a perfect way to put it to use.

The first batch of sourdough crackers was made by strictly following a recipe from King Arthur Flour. It was the first time I was incorporating starter or discard into a recipe, so I decided to follow someone else’s recipe to the letter to see how it came together.

That first batch was good, but not great. They had promise, but I wanted to make a few changes. That may have more to do with me as a baker than it has to do with the recipe itself. I am never without a pencil while working in the kitchen because I’m a tinkerer by nature. I always think that one more adjustment might make a recipe even better.

So, armed with my pencil, I decided to make a few changes and bake another batch of crackers. This batch was a step in the right direction, but I wasn’t finished tinkering. Each batch was a small improvement. My family was kind enough to keep tasting batches of crackers, giving me their opinions, and telling me when they couldn’t tell any difference from the last batch.

My goal was to make a cracker that was delicious, flavorful, and so simple to make that I could make a batch and have them ready to put out for snacking in less than an hour from start to finish. I wanted to find the sweet spot between a delicious cracker and the easiest way to create it. So, steps that didn’t create a more delicious cracker weren’t welcome in the final recipe.

On the fifth batch, I landed right where I had been trying to. The recipe was simple. The dough was easy to work with. The crackers were so delicious that we simply couldn’t stop eating them.

I used Herbs de Provence for these crackers because I had a very large jar of it on hand in the pantry. I have baked a few other versions using different herbs from my spice drawer and pantry. You can use whatever sort of dried herbs you like. I have mixed thyme and rosemary with delicious results and used a blend of sage, thyme, and tarragon in other batches that were equally tasty.

We’ve enjoyed these sourdough crackers so much that I’m already working on a recipe for a pizza cracker that incorporates the flavors from our spice drawer that I add to homemade pizza night.  The last batch was nearly perfect and I hope that by this time next week I might have that recipe ready to share with you.

In the meantime, I hope that you’ll try this recipe using your discard and that you’ll adjust it to suit your tastes and to make use of the herbs and spices you have on hand. I also hope that you’ll share your herb and spice combinations with the rest of us here in the comments so that we can all get a few new ideas!

Pin Recipe

Print Recipe

Herbed Sourdough Crackers

Jennifer from 1840 Farm

I used Herbs de Provence for these crackers because I had a very large jar of it on hand. You can use whatever sort of dried herbs you like. I have mixed thyme and rosemary with delicious results and used a blend of sage, thyme, and tarragon in other batches that were equally tasty. If you like the flavor of an herb or a combination of herbs, you’ll most likely enjoy them in these crackers.

If your herb or spice blend includes salt, you may want to decrease the quantity of added salt or remove it completely from your batch. If your herbs or spices include something with heat like cayenne, you can omit the black pepper called for in the recipe if desired.

I like to roll the dough directly on my oiled baking pan. It allows me to roll the dough without adding more flour to the dough which can toughen the crackers. It also removes the step of rolling out the dough and then needing to transfer it to the baking pan. I find it much easier to simply roll out the dough in the pan I intend to bake it on. If you prefer, you can roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and then transfer the dough to the baking sheet before removing the top layer of parchment paper before baking.

Author: Jennifer from 1840 Farm

Ingredients

For the Crackers:

• ½ cup sourdough discard
• 1 cup All-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 Tablespoons butter softened or melted
• 1 teaspoon dried herbs or spices see note above
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

For the Cracker Topping:

• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon dried herbs or spices

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• In a large bowl, combine the discard, flour, salt, butter, herbs and spices, and pepper. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, mix the ingredients until they have come together to form a ball of soft dough.
• Lightly oil a large baking sheet or cookie sheet (I like to use my half sheet rimmed baking sheet) with a bit of olive oil or your favorite cooking oil. Transfer the ball of dough to the oiled baking sheet. Drizzle a bit of oil on top of the ball of dough and rub a bit of the oil on your rolling pin to prevent it from sticking to the dough.
• Roll the dough into a rectangle to a thickness of about 1/8”. Using a pastry cutter, pizza cutter, or sharp knife, cut the dough into crackers. You can be very precise about this or cut them freehand. I try to cut squares freehand measuring between 1.0 and 1.25” because I like them to be bite-sized. The thickness is the more important measurement as it will determine if the crackers bake fully and evenly. So, if you want larger crackers to serve with cheese, they can be cut to whatever size you like as long as the thickness is even and around 1/8”.
• There’s no need to separate or move the crackers once you have cut them. If you have cut through the dough, they will shrink as they bake and separate themselves. Brush the top of the crackers with a light coating of oil. Sprinkle the salt and herb topping on top of the crackers, distributing evenly.
• Bake the crackers for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through the baking time. The crackers may begin to brown lightly on the edges.
• Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow them to cool to room temperature. Because they have a butter base, they will firm up as the butter cools completely. When fully cooled, they can be stored in an airtight container for a week or so, but they never last that long here.

Tried this recipe?Mention @1840Farm or tag #1840FarmFood! We can’t wait to see what you make!