These easy homemade crackers are richly flavored with butter, whole grain spelt or wheat flour, and sourdough starter. A great way to use up excess sourdough discard!

Homemade Crackers FTW

It was a revelation when I learned that baking homemade crackers takes about the same effort as making sugar cookies. Of the many recipes I tried over the years, my favorite came from Williams Sonoma's Essentials of Baking. The recipe was akin to making pie dough, using the biscuit method of cutting or rubbing butter and shortening into the dry ingredients, then adding enough heavy cream to make a firm dough.

Sourdough Crackers

When I inherited a gorgeous sourdough starter, I began experimenting with baking sourdough crackers. Along with my easy sourdough discard focaccia, this was mainly as a way of using up my constant barrage of discard starter. I tried a few different recipes with lackluster results. Most called for baking soda, which had the dually unpleasant effect of diminishing the delicious sourness of the dough, and creating a dry, brittle texture when reacting with the acidity of the starter.

I decided to be brave and try something different. Using the Williams Sonoma recipe as a springboard, I swapped the shortening for all butter, and the heavy cream for sourdough starter. For extra flavor, I brushed the crackers with olive oil and a sprinkle of flaky salt before putting them in the oven. They bubbled up beautifully in the oven, emerging as proud, rustic cracker perfection. Jay calls them "crackhead crackers," referring to their addictive qualities: crisp, flavorful, and an ideal accompaniment to any cheese or spread.

A few ideas for fun toppings and flavorings

These sourdough crackers are delicious plain, but you can also dress them up with whatever toppings you like! Some of my favorites are:

nutritional flake yeast and curry powder (pictured)
minced rosemary and black pepper
fresh thyme lemon zest
grated parmesan and fresh oregano
smoked paprika and grated manchego
Add 1 tablespoon seeds (sesame, poppy, mustard, cumin, or a combination) to the dough, and top the crackers with more seeds

I love serving these with spreadable goat cheese flavored with lemon and herbs – recipe below!

overhead shot Homemade Sourdough Crackers

A few recipe notes:

In this recipe, the sourdough starter acts more as a flavor enhancer than as a leavening, but the crackers do bubble up more than the original recipe. The resting dough may rise a bit from the starter, but it's fine if it doesn't, as the crackers get most of their leavening from the steam the butter gives off when it hits the heat of the oven. For this reason, the starter can be active and bubbly, or older and flat, just as long as it still smells and tastes pleasant. When I feed my starter in preparation for baking bread, I save what I pour off in a jar in the fridge. After a few feedings, I have enough to make these crackers. Weighing the starter will be more accurate than using a volume measure, since the bubbles will vary.

My starter is the consistency of a thick, pourable pancake batter. The amount of starter needed to bring the dough together will vary with the moisture content of each particular starter, so add it slowly, like adding ice water to pie dough, until the dough just comes together. The starter can be either cold or room temperature.

The dough can be made a couple days in advance and stored in the fridge, or frozen for a month or two. (The acidity from the starter can turn the dough grey if stored in the fridge for too long.) Bring the dough up to room temperature before rolling it out.

The baked crackers will keep for a couple weeks, stored in an airtight container. They can be topped with a variety of lovely things. Suggestions follow!

*Bojon appétit! For more Bojon Gourmet in your life, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, purchase my gluten-free cookbook Alternative Baker, or subscribe to receive new posts via email. And if you make these homemade sourdough crackers, I’d love to see. Tag your Instagram snaps @The_Bojon_Gourmet and #bojongourmet.*

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