Crackers

lavash cracker dough with spices

I've been playing around with flatbreads and crackers a bit of late.  These are very simple things, typically.  (Flour, salt, and water will give you a bread at it's most basic.)  I like to make something called lavash crackers which in addition to those three ingredients have a bit of honey and a bit of vegetable oil and just a small amount of yeast.  They are rolled out very thin after a 90 minute rise, and then left to sit for just a few minutes.  After spritzing with a fine mist of water over the surface, you are free to toss on spices and seeds (poppy and sesame) and salt, whatever seasonings you might be in the mood to try.  I find this fun to do because these crackers take very little effort and very little time, and since they are made in small batches very few ingredients go to waste if you wind up with something that is relatively unpalatable in terms of spice combinations.  And if you try something that you've never tired before, some combination that seems like it wouldn't work but it does, that's a very satisfying experiment to complete.

One of my favorite combinations is kosher salt, course ground black pepper, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and curry powder.  I decided to try curry powder one day and really didn't think I would like it on these crackers.  But it turned out to be really good.  I try to be careful not to put too much on because spices in general go a long way and it's easy to go overboard, especially with something so potent as curry powder (at least I consider it potent -- maybe others don't -- but I love it).  I sprinkle these on the cracker dough and then toss the pan into the oven for 15 minutes at 350 F.  If the dough is rolled out thin enough, the whole thing come out in a mottled brown and breaks apart in nice crispy shards.  And it tastes amazing.

I discovered by accident some time ago that if this same dough is rolled out thin and then folded over on itself and rolled out again, but not nearly so thin, what comes out of the oven is a very tasty flatbread with this same combination of spices that has nice taught skin on the outside and is tender on the inside.  Ever since then when I make this I take some of the dough and experiment with different handling and rolling techniques just to see what happens.  Sometimes nothing noteworthy comes of it, and other times I get something really nice like big puffy pockets of dough that are similar to pita but different enough that I wouldn't call them pita. 

Baking is such a precise process where things are measured in grams and the handling of an item must be carefully duplicated in order to have consistency every time it's made.  So to have a bit of fun with something like these lavash crackers where you can give way to whimsy and creativity is a nice change.  I love the precision of baking, but I also enjoy just trying something to see what happens.  Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but it's always fun.