Gluten-Free Hazelnut Crackers with Herb Spread

Gluten-free hazelnut crackers and vegan herbed cream cheese.

Make Your Own Gluten-Free Crackers!

The wheel of the year has turned once again and New Year's Eve is fast approaching here! And that means party food, Dudes and Dudettes. Appetizing little bites of joy and peace.

On my list? These gluten-free hazelnut crackers you can serve your guests without apology. Snowy soft herbed cream cheese you can offer your favorite vegan and your die-hard carnivore. That's right. Both. At once. To whet their appetite. A tease. A taste of deliciousness to get the festivities rolling.

And no one has to know how crazy easy it was to conjure these goodies.

They'll just be totally impressed you made your own crackers.


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Gluten-Free Pecan Crackers Recipe

How to make your own gluten-free crackers- with pecan meal.

Crunchy, nutty, salty crackers. 


I have a confession to make. It begins with crackers. Crunchy, nutty, salty crackers. And the doom of shortening days. The curse of narrow daylight. The long slow creep of SAD and carb cravings has begun. The Fall Equinox is right around the corner. After-dinner walks will soon be pre-dinner walks. The wind that weaves through the cottonwoods down by the Chama riverbed will have a chilly edge to it that hints of winter skies and stirs the urge for goin'. I get that every year. The urge. The longing to clear out, let go and move on.

I feel the gypsy spirit in my bones--- screws and all.

And if I am stuck, as I now am stuck, back in this ancient rural desert where I feel--- screws and all- I don't belong, this urge goes underground. This urge- and it is a she- attempts a guise of humming patience and a veil of vague distraction knowing all the while that this ruse of hers is thin and she will soon be gnawing away at my futile attempts to remain buoyant and calm and satisfied with crudities and lettuce wraps. I will be rifling the cupboard for crackers and tortilla chips and baking starchy potatoes to smother with roasted vegetables and rustling up plates of steaming spaghetti and meatballs.

All to satiate The Need. The carb need. The Fix.

The serotonin impostor.

For those of you blessed with a friendly chemistry, those of you already anticipating the fall and winter holidays with their frosty allure of goodies and gaity, the ice skating and skiing, and the boisterous camaraderie of football- I salute you.

As for me?

I am preoccupied with conjuring lower carb crackers. And tossing up prayers to the wise and (one can only hope) merciful Real Estate Goddess. Maybe she'll take pity on me. If the house does not sell by November, we'll invent Plan B.

Gluten-free pecan crackers.

Gluten-Free Pecan Cracker Recipe

By Karina Allrich

These crackers taste a bit like rye crackers, due to the caraway and cocoa powder. If you're not a fan of rye bread or rye crackers, leave out the caraway.

Whisk together the dry ingredients:

1/2 cup millet flour or sorghum flour, more as needed*
1/4 cup potato starch (not potato flour!)
1/2 cup GF buckwheat flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons organic cocoa powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon caraway, to taste
1 teaspoon dried thyme or dried crushed rosemary

Stir in:

1 1/2 cups pecan meal
Ener-G Egg Replacer for 1 egg mixed with warm water
1/4 cup good olive oil
1/2 cup warm water or non-dairy milk, to start
1 teaspoon raw organic agave or brown sugar

Stir the ingredients until a stiff dough forms- you'll need to press the dough out into a thin layer, so if it appears too dry, or it falls apart, add a tablespoon of warm water at a time until the dough is malleable but not too sticky. My dough used almost 2/3 cup liquid- but this will vary according to flours and humidity.

Note*

The second time I made these crackers I needed three extra tablespoons of millet flour to get the dough sturdy and glossy. As always- dough and batters vary slightly with humidity.

Instructions:

When dough is mixed, divide in half.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a reusable Exopat.

Using oiled hands flatten and spread half the dough on the prepared baking sheet. Make as thin a layer as possible. Use the edge of a rubber spatula to straighten outside edges, if you like. The thinner the cracker is, the crisper it will be.

Prick the dough with a fork- or not- it's your choice.

Score the flattened dough into cracker sized pieces. I used a pizza cutter to do this.

To bake:

Sprinkle with sea salt or kosher salt, if desired.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes till firm and slightly crisp (they will crisp up more as they cool). I use an Exopat, so the crackers baked a little longer- and were done at 24 minutes. Keep an eye on them.

Remove and allow the crackers to cool on a rack.

Store in an air-tight container. Or freeze. If they soften from humidity, reheat them on a baking sheet for a few minutes before serving.

Makes 36 crackers.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

For substitutions, please see my guide to baking with substitutions here.

Gluten-Free Multi-Grain Crackers

Company worthy gluten-free olive oil multi-grain crackers.

Crispy Crunchy Homemade Crackers

This is a light, pleasantly crisp cracker that is flaky and tender- and you won't believe it's gluten-free and vegan. The texture is so elegant. Yet. The flavor retains an earthy touch of rustic, with a hint of... Dude. Cue soft focus. Suddenly I feel as if I'm in a varietal wine commercial, tossing my hair back (if I had tossable tresses, that is and not a sensible cheek length bob that refuses to toss) and laughing just so- with a tableaux of my closest, dearest multicultural friends, of course- revealing a gleaming set of perfectly capped teeth as I raise a globe of pinot noir into the rosy glow of a Napa Valley sunset to convey The Good Life.

The life without chin hairs and medical bills and neighbors who don't recycle.

All kidding aside (I don't sport a tableaux of polo shirt wearing best friends and I've never been to Napa Valley or for that matter, capped my teeth or Botoxed my frown lines leaving the perfect hint of crow's feet to crinkle when I smile so that you don't notice my eyebrows are frozen back to 1985) I  just might bake up a batch of these tasty crackers for Oscar night, whip up some Roasted Eggplant Tapenade and pop open a bottle of lovely Veuve Clicquot Brut.

Uh oh.

Sounds so swanky and pseudo-chic again, I know (but really- I've no idea what the subtle variations of brut vs Champagne and méthode champenoise vs méthode traditionnelle are; I could research and report back to you, I guess, using terms like appellation and second fermentation and nose). But.

Maybe you'd rather not know. Maybe you'd rather go with the flow and focus on something tangible, something in the here and now and sitting right in front of you like- a simple cracker recipe- and take my word for it. Veuve Clicquot Brut tastes good. It's pretty tasty with crackers. Grapes. And popcorn, for that matter. This I know.

The rest is all persuasion technique. I looked it up.

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Gluten-Free Garlic and Sesame Crackers

Make your own gluten-free snack crackers- it's easy.

Crackery Snacky Gluten-Free Goodness

Crackers don't get enough credit. I guess they're not cute enough. Or sexy enough. No swirls of pastel icing. No confetti sprinkles. No tiny ribbons and bows. No Jackson Pollock drips of balsamic reduction or snow pea puree.

Just simple squares.

Ho-hum brown.

Crackers are the wallflowers at the food blogger's party. Too ordinary and unassuming to garner much attention. But there might be a few of you in the same boat I row upstream.

The snack deprived boat.

So this one's for you.

Folks who can consume gluten probably take their snacks for granted. After all, they can grab any bag of chips or cracker box off the shelf of any market or convenience store and motor on over to the cheese section without breaking a sweat. Snack attack solved. Please pass the Doritos.
But for those of us living gluten-free and casein-free- it ain't so easy. (And if you happen to have additional allergies- to sunflower oil or nuts or spices- you get one complicated serpentine quest for a safe little bite.)

At this writing, I can count on one hand the number of available chips or crackers I can eat. Safely. And for some mysterious reason that only the petulant Goddess of the Universe knows, that modest handful of snack options is never stocked. Anywhere.

I search in vain every weekly trip to Santa Fe for the one potato chip I can eat. Or a single non-GMO tortilla chip. Even those funny little white rice wafers play hard to get. New Mexico appears to be staunchly plain rice cracker free (I guess rice crackers don't like to flirt with guacamole and salsa).

Which explains why I bake my own snacks and crackers.

It's a pragmatic choice. I've made Pecan Crackers, and Savory Grain-Free Crackers (back when I didn't know I was allergic to Parmesan). I've made crispy sweet potato and gold potato chips.

But this week we found ourselves crackerless. So we baked up a new recipe on the spot. With garlic and sesame seeds. If you cannot eat sesame, darling, flax seeds or hemp seeds will work.

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Savory Grain-Free Crackers

Gluten-free grain-free crackers.

 

As promised, here is how I made the grain-free gluten-free crackers I took with me to the set of The Canyon. This is a fairly simple recipe with delicious results. A savory garlicky grain-free cracker made with almond meal. Enjoy!

Karina's Savory Grain-Free Cracker Recipe

Originally published May 2007.

These crackers are mighty tasty- especially if you're generous with the seasonings. I used Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic and Organic Italian Herbs to create kick-ass flavor.

Ingredients:

2 cups almond meal

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon minced roasted garlic, to taste

Pinch of dried minced onion

2 teaspoons dried Italian Herbs, to taste

Pinch or two of turmeric or paprika for color

1 teaspoon of fine sea salt

1 teaspoon sugar or raw organic agave

1 cup very finely grated aged Parmesan (I used a microplane grater)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons spring or filtered water, as needed

1 beaten egg white- or omit for vegan

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line a standard baking sheet with parchment paper or a reusable Silpat.

Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until a moist, moderately sticky dough forms. Add more water or oil if you need it.

Taste test. Adjust seasonings to your taste buds. If it needs it, add a tiny pinch of sugar to offset the salty flavor.

Using oiled hands place the mound of dough on the parchment and flatten with the palm of your hand. Use oiled palms and fingers to press the dough out evenly and quite thin. If it cracks, simply press back together with moist fingers.

Bake in the center of a hot oven for 15 minutes or until the dough is set and golden.

Remove and cool on a wire rack. When the dough has cooled, cut the dough into pieces using a pizza cutter. Or break apart for random jagged pieces.

The crackers will be extremely tender and breakable while they are warm. Allow them to cool completely before handling.

Store in an air tight container. They are not super crisp, and are quite tender. And best of all- very flavorful.

If you prefer a crisper cracker, bake briefly before serving. Keep an eye on them so that they don't get too browned.

This made roughly 18 crackers.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Gluten-Free Buttermilk Flatbread- Easy as 1-2-3

The easiest gluten-free cracker-flatbread ever.

Easy Gluten-Free Flatbread

There are days when keeping a Gluten-Free Pantry Quick Mix in your cupboard can come in handy. Yesterday- as the flannel grey sky spit snow at us out here in the high desert- a certain gluten-free goddess had a casita full of men to feed- including those devilishly handsome amigos of mine, Joey and Will. So Joey and I collaborated in my tiny blue tiled cocina and whipped up some tasty gluten-free comestibles.

He made his fabulous Kicked Up Rockin' Guac. I made some hummus spiked with cilantro pesto. We served up an array of crudities, organic blue corn chips and salsa, chicken salad (from Will), my Pecan Crackers, jalapeno-stuffed olives, and my freshly made basil-pecan pesto with a spur-of-the-moment improvthat is a cross between a tender cracker and a tasty flatbread.

And I'm also thinking, Dear Reader, this dough might make for a delicious and fast yeast-free gluten-free pizza crust.

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