Failures in baking

Here's what happens when you experiment with one of King Arthur Flours great recipes:

From Crackers

These are Rye Krisp crackers, and are the first thing I have made from King Arthur Flours Baking Companion cookbook that hasn't been really awesome! This is really a great book on baking almost anything you can think of. It has a lot of information as well as the actual recipes.

They look so beautiful, but they turned out very firm. This is not the fault of the recipe though, since I changed it by using Whole Wheat and Whole Rye fresh ground flours. I think there was simply to much fiber in it and then I worked it to much, which just made matters worse. If I had used a flour with less gluten, it probably would have helped a great deal too. Really thinking I need to look for soft wheat berries just for making crackers and quickbreads, rather than the hard winter wheat berries I use for bread.



The actual process for making these was really simple, first you take the oil and dry ingredients and mix forming small crumbly pieces.  Then you add the liquids and mix them together. Do not overmix, you do not want the gluten to get strong. Once you can form it into a ball, then it's time to refrigerate it for up to 24 hours.  You do this to increase the flavor of the wheat, which makes them taste really good.  The flavor in mine is awesome, and I gave it 22 hours in the fridge.  Then you need to roll the dough out really thin, about 1/8 to 1/16 inch thick.  I used a rolling pin that has notches in it used for making lefse, for rye krisps you normally use a pin that has larger notches in it.  Once it was thin enough, about 14" x 17" I used a pizza cutter to cut the crackers, and used an egg wash on top of them to glaze them.  The two things I would do differently with these is I would sift a portion of the whole wheat flour, and I would use a soft wheat berry.  Even though they are hard, I still am enjoying them a lot. What a great flavor they have! 

Here are a few of the products I used when making these.  I actually used the King Arthur Dough Mat, but a silpat one works pretty well too.  No guarantees you will like them too, but thought I would include links to what I actually do use!