Gluten-Free Garlic and Sesame Crackers

Make your own gluten-free snack crackers- it's easy.

Crackers don't get enough credit. I guess they're not cute enough. Or sexy enough. No swirls of pastel icing. No confetti sprinkles. No tiny ribbons and bows. No Jackson Pollock drips of balsamic reduction or snow pea puree.

Just simple squares.

Ho-hum brown.

Crackers are the wallflowers at the food blogger's party. Too ordinary and unassuming to garner much attention. But there might be a few of you in the same boat I row upstream.

The snack deprived boat.

So this one's for you.

Folks who can consume gluten probably take their snacks for granted. After all, they can grab any bag of chips or cracker box off the shelf of any market or convenience store and motor on over to the cheese section without breaking a sweat. Snack attack solved. Please pass the Doritos.
But for those of us living gluten-free and casein-free- it ain't so easy. (And if you happen to have additional allergies- to sunflower oil or nuts or spices- you get one complicated serpentine quest for a safe little bite.)

At this writing, I can count on one hand the number of available chips or crackers I can eat. Safely. And for some mysterious reason that only the petulant Goddess of the Universe knows, that modest handful of snack options is never stocked. Anywhere.

I search in vain every weekly trip to Santa Fe for the one potato chip I can eat. Or a single non-GMO tortilla chip. Even those funny little white rice wafers play hard to get. New Mexico appears to be staunchly plain rice cracker free (I guess rice crackers don't like to flirt with guacamole and salsa).

Which explains why I bake my own snacks and crackers.

It's a pragmatic choice. I've made Pecan Crackers, and Savory Grain-Free Crackers (back when I didn't know I was allergic to Parmesan). I've made crispy sweet potato and gold potato chips.

But this week we found ourselves crackerless. So we baked up a new recipe on the spot. With garlic and sesame seeds. If you cannot eat sesame, darling, flax seeds or hemp seeds will work.

Crisp and lovely gluten-free crackers.

Garlic and Sesame Gluten-Free Cracker Recipe

I ended up using a half cup of pecan meal in this recipe because nut meal adds to the taste and texture of gluten-free crackers. If pecans are a problem for you, almond meal will work. Or use a quarter cup of seeds, if you prefer (note that adding seeds into the dough may make the crackers less crisp).

Whisk together the dry ingredients:

1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup pecan or almond meal
1/4 cup quinoa flour or brown rice flour
1 tablespoon potato starch
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1 teaspoon dried thyme or dried crushed rosemary
1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Stir in:

1/4 cup good olive oil
Ener-G Egg Replacer for 1 egg whisked with warm water
1/3 to 1/2 cup warm water, to start
1 tablespoon honey, raw agave or molasses

Instructions:

Stir the ingredients until a stiff dough forms- you'll need to press the dough out into a thin layer, so if it appears too dry, or it falls apart easily, add one tablespoon of warm water and mix; repeat until the dough is malleable but not too wet.

Divide the dough in half.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a reusable Exopat.

Using oiled hands flatten and spread half the dough on the prepared baking sheet. Make as thin a layer as possible. Use the edge of a rubber spatula to straighten outside edges, if you like.

Score the flattened dough into cracker sized pieces. I used a pizza cutter to do this.

To bake you'll need:

Sea salt
Sesame seeds (or flax seeds, or hemp seeds)

Sprinkle the scored dough with salt and sesame seeds.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes till firm and slightly crisp (they will crisp up more as they cool). I use an Exopat, so keep that in mind; they may cook faster without one. Keep an eye on them.

Remove and allow the crackers to cool on a rack.

We bag and freeze the cooled crackers. If you find they soften from humidity, reheat them on a baking sheet for a few minutes before serving.

Makes 36 crackers.

Sesame seeds add a nice touch.