Saltine Crackers

Good afternoon!  Today we were out of everything and decided to make our own saltine crackers!  Depending on if you have little helpers or not and, also, depending on how helpful they actually are, you could make these in about 20 minutes.  These are really easy and fully customizable.  We decided to make star-shaped crackers but you can also make the traditional, wavy-edged, holes-in-rows kind.

You can also use different kinds of flours, herbs... even cinnamon and sugar!  We chose to make these with half unbleached all-purpose and half white whole wheat.

Saltine Crackers

• 2 cups unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, or whatever suits your fancy.
• 4 tablespoons of melted butter 
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Add the flours and salt to your food processor (or a bowl) and mix it up.

Drizzle in the melted butter and mix.

Lastly, add the water as you are mixing in the processor (or stirring!), being careful to not add too much.  The dough should stick together in a ball but not be squishy.

Roll it out as thinly as you can and cut into desired shapes.

We added stars shapes in rows (not pressing through the dough completely) and the used a pizza cutter to outline the square crackers.



Bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes.  Cool before breaking apart, if you can keep from munching on them first!



In order to make the edges straight, I just cut with a pizza cutter and baked the uneven edges, taking them off after baking.  The little crooked strips are yummy, too!  That way, none is wasted AND you don't have to spend too much time trying to make all the dough straight.

So, there you have it!  Saltine crackers... And, even cooler than the ones in the grocery store because they are STARS!!  You could make initials, logos, messages - whatever you imagine.  Another good part is that people with sensitivities to gluten, malted barley flour, or, for that matter, hydrogenated oils, refined flours, high fructose corn syrup, soy, trans fats, extra salt, artificial flavorings and colorings, etc. can have their OWN crackers and free themselves from the tyranny of eating stuff that the big companies don't want to tell you about...  If so-called "natural flavor" was something to be proud of, why not list what it is instead of masking it with just the word "natural"? 

Happy Crunchin' Munchin'!

~Jessica

P.S.  For some bizarre reason, my quotation marks are rebelling... Don't know why, but it is NOT a typo when you've tried consciously to fight it... It works on my preview:(  If anyone knows how to fix it, please let me know.