Crackers and Edible Flowers

I have never made homemade crackers in my life. Over the last few days, I’ve been experimenting with discarded sourdough starter. When I feed my sourdough starter every week, I keep a small amount and toss the rest. Seems so wasteful, so I’ve been searching for recipes utilizing this discard.

One way to use discarded sourdough starter is to make crackers. My first attempt at creating crackers occurred a few days ago. Here is the online recipe from King Arthur. I was able to get the dough only so thin with a rolling pin. They are tasty, though, with seasonings of garlic powder, rosemary and sea salt. Just a tad bit too thick. But a worthy recipe to try again.

The very next day, I saw a post on Instagram demonstrating cracker making using a pasta machine! How brilliant is that! And timely, as my sweet in-laws just sent me their hand-cranked pasta machine and all the attachments. Thank you, Bruce and Janiece!

This may be my new weekly addiction as the newly made batch of flatbread was E.X.C.E.L.L.E.N.T! The person responsible for the pasta machine/cracker making idea is Aimee from Twigg Studio. Her Instagram feed is @twiggstudios.

Aimee is a food and photography lover based in Devon, UK and I have made a few of her recipes. Visiting her website is a mini-vacation for me as I love her style and photos. And so does the rest of the world as she has 119,000 followers! In a previous post I shared one of her cakes and it was truly delicious. Click here for her vegan pineapple, lime and ginger cake.

Here is another photo of her potato and leek pie using edible flowers in the crust. Not something I would have ever considered!

Her flatbread recipe suggests using edible flowers and herbs and her crackers are truly a work of art. Feeling ambitious, my daughter Elisabeth and I thought we would try this flatbread recipe.

The ingredients are so simple~~sourdough starter, water, olive oil, flour, salt and fresh herbs/flowers.

Combine the starter, water, and oil in a bowl and mix to combine. Add the flour and salt and bring together into a soft dough.

Knead the dough for a few minutes and then let it rest for 1 hour.

While the dough is resting, I search the yard for edible flowers. I was unaware how many flowers can be eaten~~from snapdragons to sunflowers. There is an extensive list of flowers on Aimee’s website. Click here for the list. Naturally, be careful not to include flowers that may be toxic or ones treated with pesticides.

My bounty consists of fresh basil, sage, nasturtium, pansy, primrose, chamomile and chive flowers and roses. After some research, I discovered an additional list of edible flowers online~~I had no idea hollyhocks are edible or I would have added them.

After the resting period, the dough is now ready for the pasta machine.

The dough is soft and pliable. Using more flour during handling prevents sticking. Starting with the widest setting, the dough is fed through the machine.

With each pass through the pasta machine, the setting is lowered. Roll the dough until very thin. Add the flowers and herbs to one half of the length and fold it over to cover it.

Turn the machine back up a few notches and roll the dough through again until it is as thin as possible.

Isn’t this dough beautiful??!!!

Take the second half of the dough and repeat. Cut the dough into 4 long crackers.

Place the dough on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and brush with olive oil.

You can use any salt, but I sprinkled smoked Maldon flaked sea salt on the dough, with some more fresh herbs, dried rosemary and additional flowers.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden and crispy.

Naturally, trying something new is a bit challenging. But in retrospect, I would make these flatbreads every week. They are delicious and think of all the seasoning possibilities~~parmesan, garlic, gruyere.

The pasta machine is the perfect solution to getting the dough nice and thin vs. hand rolling (at least for me).

In addition to learning how to use the pasta machine, it was helpful having Elisabeth assist on this. The dough is long when it comes out of the machine so extra hands were needed. If you have a pasta attachment to your KitchenAid mixer, I am sure that would work well too. If not, just try to roll the dough as thin as possible with a rolling pin.

Here is the second piece of dough and you can see where the flowers have been stretched throughout. It will take some practice to get this as picture perfect as Twigg Studios, but the flavor was so good regardless.

It is fun to be challenged by a recipe and then have good results! Now that I have the hang of it, the process will not be so daunting.

Aimee’s flatbreads are so inspirational as well as beautiful.

I tend to get into a baking rut, so I love trying a new recipe that forces me out of my comfort zone. If you have a challenging recipe, send it my way. I am always excited to try something new!

Hope you are having a terrific Tuesday. Can you believe Memorial Day is this coming weekend?

Happy baking!