The Vermont Common Cracker is the canonical cracker to accompany any New England chowder, or so I am told. As we have a chowder coming up (probably tomorrow), I thought it was time to try these out. What a lovely, delicately flavored cracker! I warn you that, if you make these, you may never want to look at a bag of oyster crackers again.
I followed this recipe, which is already vegan, as long as you choose vegetable shortening instead of lard. I played fast and loose with the instructions and it still worked well. I didn't let the batter rest for an hour after combining starter and flour. I didn't keep the extra pieces in plastic bags. I generally charged forward as quickly as possible, and everything was absolutely fine. I cut the crackers with an old spice jar dipped in flour, and wound up with well over 200 of them! Once you try a common cracker, you'll be glad you have so many.
The use of a pasta roller, as given in the linked instructions, was extremely helpful. The process would have been slower and more tedious without it. The experience also made me realize that a pasta roller would be a pretty decent biscuit brake for making Southern beaten biscuits, which appear to be a cousin of the common cracker. I fully intend to use my pasta roller for this purpose, soon (read: as soon as this MoFo project is over).
If you are afraid of making crackers, don't be! These were fast (plus the oven drying time) and easy!
1 comment:
great post JohnP! I've only ever made crackers a few times. These sound - and look - really good. I love the idea of using a spice jar as a small circle cutter too. Why did I never think of that??
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