Sourdough discard crackers you'll make on purpose

If you keep a sourdough starter, you know the guilt of the discard jar. These crackers use 200 g of it at a time, need no rising, and come out thin, blistered and sharp enough that people will think you bought them. They also keep for weeks, which is the point of a pantry bake.

Makes about 40 crackers. Active time: 20 minutes. Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes.

Ingredients

• 200 g (about 1 cup) sourdough discard, 100% hydration, straight from the fridge is fine
• 100 g (¾ cup) all-purpose or whole wheat flour
• 50 g (¼ cup) olive oil
• 4 g (¾ teaspoon) fine salt
• 30 g (¼ cup) mixed seeds: sesame, flax, nigella or sunflower
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary or thyme, crumbled (optional)
• Flaky salt, for the top

Method

1. Heat the oven to 160°C (325°F) with racks in the upper and lower thirds.
2. Stir everything except the flaky salt into a stiff, slightly sticky dough. If it is too wet to roll, add flour a tablespoon at a time.
3. Divide the dough in half. Roll each half directly on a sheet of baking paper until it is about 1.5 mm (1/16 inch) thick, roughly the size of a sheet pan. You should almost be able to see the paper through it.
4. Slide the paper onto two sheet pans. Brush lightly with water, scatter with flaky salt and press it in gently.
5. Score into rectangles with a pizza cutter or knife. You don’t need to separate them.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, swap and rotate the pans, then bake another 15 to 25 minutes. Pull out any crackers at the edges that brown early.
7. They are done when the center pieces are golden and lift off the paper easily. Cool completely on the pans, then snap along the score lines.

Why low and slow

A cracker has two jobs in the oven: dry out completely, then brown. At 200°C (400°F), the outside browns long before the middle has dried, and you get crackers that are dark at the edges and bendy in the center. At 160°C, the water leaves first and the browning catches up later. The longer bake is almost entirely hands-off.

Thickness matters just as much. We tested 1.5 mm against 3 mm rolled dough at the same temperature. The thin batch was crisp all the way through in 45 minutes. The thick batch needed over an hour and still had a chewy core.

Flavor variations

• Everything cracker: sesame, poppy seeds, dried garlic, dried onion and flaky salt.
• Cheese: 40 g (½ cup) finely grated parmesan in the dough, and less salt.
• Rye and caraway: use rye flour and 1 teaspoon caraway seeds.
• Black pepper and olive: 1 teaspoon cracked pepper, chopped olives pressed into the top.

Keeping them crisp

Crackers soften because they pull moisture from the air. Store them only once completely cool, in an airtight jar. They keep for three weeks.