50 States of MoFo: Vermont Common Crackers

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!