These Seeded Rosemary Crackers are vegan, gluten free and mind blowingly delicious!
When these seeded rosemary crackers are baking the house fills with the most marvelous scents like stepping into an old world bakery. They are crisp and firm enough to scoop up some fava spread yet they are not the type that will break your teeth. When people first taste them their eyes go wide with surprise at the melody of toasted flavors that dance through their mouths.
A soft nicker of disapointment escaped his velvet lips as he swallowed the last of the Easter loaf. We wiped our damp hands on our long homemade dresses and sagged in indecision.
We had been sent to the bakery to buy the Easter Tsoureki. No small responsibility considering our parents limited budget. Only on Easter do they sell these soft, sweet loaves of bread, redolent with mahlepi and masticha. A thing of beauty, each round laminated loaf is decorated with four red-dyed hard boiled eggs.
On our way back from the bakery our little feet had carried us (in what my mom would have called “the scenic route“) to the port, where we spotted a dark brown mule staring like the The French Lieutenant’s Woman out to sea. A tear sparkled in the corner of his mournful eye and ran down his cheek. Overly sympathetic I hatched a plan to cheer him up.
“A Strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow.”
-Francoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse
I broke off a small chunk of the holiday bread and fed it to him. He gently snuffled the tidbit in my palm and chewed it gratefully. He rallied momentarily but quickly relapsed into mulish depression. So we fed him chunk after chunk until the last crumb dusted his mouth.
Our pockets bulged with the four red eggs. In for a penny in for a pound. Surely an egg would be just the thing to help him rally. We peeled the first egg and our mule friend delicately nibbled away until there was nothing left but red shells. The money spent, the bread gone, the eggs gone and our mule no happier than when we’d found him. We two girls patted our dusty friend and headed home, with empty pockets, feet dragging at the cobbled road.
“Each day had a tranquility a timelessness about it so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of the night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us glossy and colorful as a child’s transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.”
-Gerald Durrell
Easy Home made Cheese-its, Vegan, Gluten Free and super cheesy.
Check out my new Aquafaba page! For tips, tricks and to see all of my Aquafabulous recipes.
Seeded Rosemary Crackers
These These Seeded Rosemary Crackers are healthful, addictive, and so simple your 5 year old could make them. They last for weeks in a tin … if you hide them.
- 1 cup Rolled Oats (Make sure you are using GF oats if you are baking for someone with celiacs. )
- 1/3 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup flax seeds
- 1/8 cup chia seeds
- 1/4 cup poppy seeds
- 3 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup fennel seeds
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 tsp dried rosemary
- 3 tsp oil (optional, add 3 more tsp of aquafaba if skipping the oil. )
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/3 cup thick aquafaba
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- zest from 2 oranges
- 1/3 cup dried cranberries (optional)
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
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Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Here is the thing, I know there are a ton of ingredients but feel free to really pare down the number of types of seeds. All you need do is keep the ratio of wet to dry the same and make sure you include at least one muciliginous seed like chia or flax. I have used nuts in this as well with great success. Chopped pistachios are especially pretty. Also with out the rosemary for any other dried herb and you will meet with success. Imagine mint? lovely. Okay onwards to the recipe.
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Place all of the ingredients in a large bowl and give it a good massage. Really get in there and work it for 1-2 minutes. Now leave it to meld for a good 20 minutes.
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Place parchment paper cut to the size of your sheet pan on the counter. Smear the seed mixture over it. Now place another sheet of parchment over the top and begin to convince it to become flat. Coax it with a rolling pin by pressing and rolling out towards the edges. This takes some finesse. Sometimes I rub my open hand in a burnishing motion over the top parchment and smooth it that way. Once you have it in a rectangle roughly 26″ by 18″. Slip it on to the sheet pan and peel off the top layer of parchment.
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Place it in the center rack of the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and gently place a cutting board over the top of the crackers. Flip the whole thing and place again on the sheet pan with the down side now up. Basically you want to bake it on both sides and use what ever method of flipping works best for you.
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bake another 15 minutes and remove from oven. Allow to cool. Break into shards and enjoy of pack away in a cookie tin.
5 Seed Rosemary Flax Crackers, Gluten Free Vegan[/caption]
I came over with the intention of eating a small snack. I left after eating half a pan, smeared and topped with half the fridges contents. Beware: addictive substance, class 1.
I think we should drop the -ers and just call them crack. I actually hid this batch so I could photograph it on the first sunny day. Now alas it is but a memory of flavors.
Oh to be a teary-eyed Mule in your path.
Let there be crack-ers, forever more.
❤
Evermore Evermore said the Crow.
I remember those ‘timeless’ days and nights. I remember little Johanne and almost-as-little Helle nibbling bread and dashing barefoot up the hill or down it. I remember it all well and it brings on an appetite. Perhaps it’s about time I rosemary crackers and whipped up a bit of hummus. Good memories like this are as good as a meal for me. Very precious.
Wow! It would be worth making these just for the lovely aroma that would permeate my apartment! Gorgeous pics too!
Thank you. Now if they could bottle that. That is a perfume I would wear.
Thank you Johanne this may just be the one thing I can successfully carry and keep fresh (you mentioned it could last up to two weeks – (I’m thinking in air tight bags ) and carry travelling when ‘off the beaten track’!
I have to say I keep a tin in the car for after long runs and they stay wonderfully crisp. If you have a desiccant package, from say new shoes, you could throw that in with the crackers if you live somewhere super humid.
These crackers are like the very best of the Norwegian home-made, thin and ultra-seedy “knekkebrød” (crisp bread). I’m reading Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy aloud at home to your niece. There are some lovely lines in the third volume that make me think of that mule: “The warm air, the wine, and the melancholy beauty of the night filled me with a delicious sadness. It would always be like this, I thought.”
Not just ultra seedy, only seedy. I reread them recently, as I do Lawrence’s Alexandria Quartet every few years. I’m sure Tzoe is savoring each morsel of their lives.
These crackers look delicious!! I think I will make them soon.I love your use of words in your blogs. Very unique!!
I hope you enjoy them. The smell alone is worth the effort. Thank you for you kind words and for visiting. Stop by again.
I wasn’t even looking for cracker recipes—just searching for ways to use up aquafaba (I used to think nothing of throw it down the drain when it was just chickpea liquid, but now in its new incarnation it seems wasteful). Talk about serendipity! These are the most fabulous crackers ever. You could start a business selling these. I can’t even begin to imagine how you thought about combining all the seeds and the fruits. They are so healthy—WFPB, except for those completely salt-oil-(sugar) free (which I am not—I don’t think a little in moderation is going to kill me). But the taste! Cue Julie Andrews running up the mountain, singing “My tastebuds are alive, with the taste of Hanne (‘s crackers).” THANK YOU!!!
Oh Ellen, I am ever so chuffed that you love these crackers as much as I do. A family friends makes a big tin of these almost every week. I’m just so pleased! -Hanne
I thought other commenters were exaggerating. But no, these are the most amazing crackers ever- better than any shop bought that’s for sure!! And so easy to mix the seeds and flavours around with what’s available or what you fancy! Thank you for this delicious and simple recipe. Now excuse me while I finish the latest batch!
Nicola! You made my day!!!