These crackers make use of sourdough discard, with sesame flavor coming from three sources!
Homemade crackers are remarkably simple to make, delicious, and can be modified in many ways to create flavor combinations you’ll love.
On Saturday, I try to remember to feed “Ginny Junior,” my sourdough starter of 11 years. I often forget in the summer when I’m not baking so much, but once the weather turns, a Saturday bake is often in the day’s mix of things I’ll do.
Use that discard!
When one has a sourdough starter, it needs to be fed, or replenished, once every week or two, or more often. Part of the feeding process is reducing the volume before feeding to keep everything at the right ratio. This means you have starter “discard” to use. The discard is seldom tossed in my house! Usually, I’ll feed the discard and make a batch of bread, or give it away to a friend.
However, sometimes I use the discard for a variety of other recipes, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and now crackers are on my list.
The original
I came across a recipe for sourdough discard crackers on the King Arthur Baking website. They looked great, so I thought I’d give them a try since they had such good reviews.
Of course, I’ve changed the recipe, quite a bit actually! My first batch I made according to the recipe and I used rosemary as the herb. The most difficult part was daring to roll the dough thin enough! The recipe said it made 100 1 ¼” crackers, and I only made around 60. They tasted good, but were too thick! However, they were consumed happily, and I made them using lots of different herbs after that, working on my thinness.
Marilyn’s version
I found a post at Marilyn Dishes, a really lovely blog if you haven’t seen it. She used the King Arthur recipe and substituted poppyseeds for the herbs. Her variation here: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/121691365/posts/22229
I liked the idea the seeds, thank you Marilyn, and thought it would be delicious to use sesame so I whipped up a batch one Saturday with my discard. They lacked sesame flavor, so my next time around I substituted sesame tahini for the butter, and used a tsp. of toasted sesame oil to bump up the flavor even more. They taste a lot like the little sesame sticks I get at the health food store, and I loved them!
Your choice flours
The flour I use is King Arthur white whole wheat flour, but many of the reviewers said they used gluten-free flour, or regular whole wheat, so you can experiment.
Of course, you can always follow the original recipe here: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-crackers-recipe
Sourdough Whole Wheat Sesame Crackers
- 1 cup Sourdough starter discard
- ¼ cup tahini
- 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
- 1 tsp. honey
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- Salt and seeds for sprinkling
Place the cup of sourdough discard, tahini, oil, honey, seeds, and salt in a bowl and blend. Add the flour, and mix with a wooden spoon until the flour is mostly absorbed, then turn out onto a lightly floured board and finish bringing it together.
Shape the dough into a square, then cut in half and reshape each half into a little rectangle. Wrap up and refrigerate for at least a half hour so the flour can be hydrated by the moist ingredients.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with lightly floured parchment or silicone mat.
Remove one piece of the floured parchment from its pan and roll out the first rectangle of dough. You want to get it 1/16th of an inch or so. I used my metal kitchen ruler as a template and scored the lines with a pizza wheel. The ruler is a perfect 1 ¼-inch wide, so cutting around it vertically and horizontally created the right sized crackers. However, you can make these whatever size and shape you like!
Pick up the parchment paper on the short ends and transfer to the baking sheet. Cut out the second batch.
Lightly spray the two trays of crackers with oil. I have a little refillable pump bottle I use. Sprinkle with a few more sesame seeds and some flaky sea salt.
Using a fork, prick the crackers all over, this will help to keep the crackers flat and even textured.
Bake for 10 minutes and turn the pan. The crackers will need another 5 to 7 minutes, but keep your eye on them.
Let cool and separate them from each other, they will just sort of fall apart.
© Copyright 2020– or current year, The New Vintage Kitchen. Unattributed use of this material is strictly prohibited. Reposting and links may be used, provided that credit is given to The New Vintage Kitchen, with active link and direction to this original post. The New Vintage Kitchen does not accept ads or payment for mention of products or businesses.
Supporter of Slow Food Fair Trade USA
Northeast Organic Farmers Association
Perfect for cocktail hour.
They certainly are, thank you so much for stopping by!
Looks absolutely delicious 😋
Thank you so much, they are really tasty and a little addictive!
These crackers look wonderful! And I love that sourdough flavor—I will have to start making sourdough bread so I have some discard for these! 🙂
Thank you! Using the discard is definitely a benefit of the whole process!
Hello Dorothy! Looks remarkable too!
Thank you! They are quite tasty!
I shall be trying these most definitely – idea with New Zealand summertime dips and drinks!
Perfect time for little nibbles!
Oh gosh; all I need now is the starter!
Yikes… I’m in trouble! 🙂
Yes, one does need starter in order to make these! 💕
Kitchen
On Saturday, November 14, 2020, The New Vintage Kitchen wrote:
> Dorothy’s New Vintage Kitchen posted: ” These crackers make use of > sourdough discard, with sesame flavor coming from three sources! Our > favorite way to eat these sesame crackers is with a flavorful hummus! > Homemade crackers are remarkably simple to make, delicious, and can be > modified in” >
Your energy in the kitchen always impresses me Dorothy, and as much as I love sour dough, I just don’t have the patience to maintain and starter and bake bread…the crackers sound amazing!
Jenna
Well, I’ll just bake them for you! It does take a commitment! I just love having that little crock in my refrigerator; it certainly came in handy when there was a yeast shortage earlier this year!
Yes, I know you were happy to have it especially then!!
I don’t make sourdough, but love using tahini in crackers. 🙂
It’s so good!
Amazing
Thank you! Warning, they disappear quickly!
This is a great recipe, Dorothy and just want I needed to find. I am definitely going to make these.
Thank you! I think you’ll like them ad much as we do!
Fingers crossed
Wonderful & delicious 😋 👍🤝
Thank you! And they also disappear rather quickly!
They sound absolutely delicious, I need to try this recipe soon!
Thank you! I hope you do try it, so easy and lots of fun!
I put whole Teff grains in my sourdough crackers. I had ordered what I thought was Teff flour from Amazon, but it turned out I had ordered whole Teff grains by mistake. 🤷♀️ I had been trying to think of a good use for the whole Teff grains, and I came up with putting them in the sourdough crackers. They are even smaller than poppy seeds and I love the texture the Teff grains provide to the crackers.
I’m going to have to try this Julia! Sometimes our best recipes happen out of happy accidents!
Sounds great, Dolly! This with a sourdough starter is new to me, but i will have a look for it. Making sourdough by myself, will indeed be a challenge. Best wishes, Michael
Yes, you really do need sourdough to be able to make this, I don’t think there is a shortcut! Maybe you have a friend?
Thank you Dorothy! I will look for this sourdough starter. First time i heard about this, but i think its available here too. Enjoy your week! Michael
You too! Stay safe!
Thank you, Dorothy!
Let me share a funny one from GP, with best wishes for Thanksgiving!
https://pacificparatrooper.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/2019-happy-thanksgiving-turkey-animation.gif
LOL Thanks!
Healthy and tasty….love love them. Have few avocados….time to make some sesame crackers and dressing.
Use those avocados! In our house, we call it the avocado game where we wait for them to ripen then we have three to use up in the same day!
:)) I can totally relate.
I have recently begun a sourdough starter, and now find myself with mucho discard. These crackers look perfect to meet a need: more crackers, less discard.
Perfect! Good luck with your new starter. It will only get better with age!