Savory Wheat Crackers

When I think about crackers, almost instantly I hear in my head: “Snackers crave crackers!” repeated gazillions of times. This week our Tuesday with Dorie baking group is cracking it up with Savory Wheat Crackers by contributing bakers Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

The ingredients for the recipe are the usual basic suspects: whole wheat flour, water, and salt. The seeds that are sprinkled on top of the crackers: sesame, anise, and nigella, are the more intriguing ones.

If you are wondering what the heck are nigella seeds, they are not Nigella Lawson’s signature creation but a part of the nigella sativa plant and also known as black cumin. I had tasted nigella seeds in the past, typically sprinkled on flat breads but I had never purchased any.

So off I went to my favorite Iranian store where I presumably bought nigella seeds. I found a little box with tiny black things inside with no labeling or anything on it. At the cash register, I asked about the contents of the box, but in return I only got the Farsi name of the product I was buying. I was worried I am buying coal! The lady I spoke with kept pointing towards her eyes when she was trying to craft a story about that mystery ingredient. And I gave in…I bought the box and kept thinking that if we ingest some coal it won’t be that bad. Activated carbon is used to treat poisoning after all. So after I mixed the dough for the crackers, I assumed the role of the test subject and chewed a few of the black thingies. I enjoyed the taste so I topped the crackers with them. I am still not 100% sure they were nigella seeds but they sure looked the part 🙂

If you have a pasta machine, rolling the dough for the crackers is super fast and efficient. The baking time for my crackers was around the 7 min mark. We enjoyed the crackers with soup and for some late night snacking on their own. Taste-wise they are similar to toasted pitas. Not a bad recipe but nothing worth a wow either.

Follow the link to the recipe.