This week I’ve been experimenting with a simple cracker recipe from the King Arthur Baking website. I needed a low-carb cracker that would go with my other low-carb meals and not mess up my blood sugar. Now that I’m wearing a continuous glucose monitor, I can watch in real time what happens when I indulge in ANY food combo! Very enlightening!
I know that eating a handful of nuts (mostly cashews and almonds) leaves my blood sugar stable. Even peanut butter doesn’t raise the numbers too much. But, put that peanut butter on a thin wheat cracker and the numbers go off the chart! Very frustrating. So…I figured if I could make an almond flour cracker, I could have a little more variety in my diet. Almond flour is gluten-free and low in carbs.
I ordered 3 1-lb bags of almond flour from the King Arthur Baking website. Then I picked up a 2-lb bag at the grocery store. After trying to measure the flour out of the bag, I finally found some containers to dump the flour into. Much better!
The recipe was pretty straightforward. I ended up making 3 batches over several days and finally got something I could call a ‘cracker.’ I may try one more time and bake them a little longer. I’m not sure I will ever get that cracker ‘crunch’ but it works!
Here is the original recipe with my notes. Final version at the end!
The ingredients were simple:
Almond flour, Salt & Pepper and one egg.
The first batch was much too thick and had no flavor. The second batch I increased the salt and sprinkled a little cinnamon/sugar on top but they were still too thick and the topping could not be tasted. Bert can use them as croutons in his soup…or not! By the last batch I had decreased the oven temperature, baked them longer, and split the batch into two so I could roll them thinner. Still not a lot of flavor but hot out of the oven they were somewhat crunchy. The last batch I sprinkled sesame seeds on top just before I put them in the oven. They didn’t stick and fell off as I took them off the cookie sheet! Guess I’ll need to mix them into the dough. Phooey.
The best idea came from Bert on how to roll them to 1/8”. He got me two 1/8” dowel rods to guide the rolling pin. It worked great! So…here’s how it went:
- Whisk the egg in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of water and the 1/2 tsp. of salt. Add pepper if desired.
2. Add the almond flour to the egg mixture, stir and gather the dough into a ball.
3. Divide the ball into two and flatten the dough with your hands. Roll out each smaller ball of dough between two sheets of parchment paper.
First and second try…they are pretty thick!
4. Third try: These 1/8″ dowel rods worked great to guide my rolling pin!
5. Using a pizza cutter, cut the rolled-out dough into desired cracker shapes. Lift the bottom sheet of parchment and place directly on the baking sheet. I trimmed the parchment paper to fit my sheets.
6. Bake at 325 degrees F for about 20 minutes. Remove the browned ones around the edge as needed and return the pan to the oven until they are all browned. Let cool on a cooling rack before storing in an airtight container.
These looked like they woul be crunchy!
Too bad the sesame seeds didn’t stick!
So, here’s the final recipe with my modifications. Give it a try! Enjoy!
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.