olive oil crackers

For this batch:

3 cups flour, 50/50 all purpose white/whole wheat milled at home from grain, and just waiting there in the refrigerator to be used for something. Almost used the King Arthur's whole wheat but I wanted to see if there'd be a noticeable difference. There is.

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or 3/4 teaspoon sea salt.)

I added garlic powder and lots of cracked black pepper this time. This is what distinguishes this batch of crackers from all the others. This and the olive oil instead of butter or vegetable oil.

1/3 cup olive oil drizzled into Cuisinart while it's running. Followed by,

1 cup water drizzled into Cuisinart while it's running.

Adjust as necessary to achieve a loose fairly wet dough. Allow to rest. Rest. HA! What does dough have to rest for? Did it do something exhausting. No. It did not. What a stupid word. Though I can see using the word "relax." The dough actually does relax. You'll notice if you try to roll it out immediately that it tends to shrink back, but if you allow it to "rest" as it were, to relax in fact, then as you roll it out it tends to flatten rather than stretch. You can feel the difference through your fingertips. During that period of relaxation, be it ten minutes or an hour, the moisture within the dough ball more thoroughly and evenly homogenizes throughout the ball by the miracle that is the hydrogen bonds of the impressive if not amazing water molecules. Simultaneously the wheat releases enzymes when in contact with water that tend to break down its own molecules in a process known as autolysis. Molecularly, the wheat is basically breaking itself apart. Here too, you can actually feel the difference in dough that has "rested" and dough that has not.

Roll out to desired thinness. These are VERY thin. As thin as dough goes. Any thinner and it'd cease to exist on three dimensions.

Score, but do not cut. Why not cut? Because then you'd miss all the fun of breaking them apart after they're baked. I scored with the bench scrapper and in some places pressed too hard and broke through which tended to take away my fun.

Dock with a fork unless you like bubbles. Bubbles aren't all that bad, actually, unless you intend them to hold up for spreading.

450˚F/230˚C for 12-14 minutes.

That was this batch, but they could be anything. Anything, I tell you! That's the problem -- deciding what to leave out of them. Choose a flour, or a combination of flours, consider flax and semolina, even rice and corn meal. Choose a fat, any fat at all, even lard, chicken schmaltz, bacon fat, butter, vegetable oil, any kind of cheese, or any combination of fats. Choose a liquid, water, milk, cream, coffee, tea, juice, Cool Aid, Pepsi, whatever. Wine. Wine right there in your crackers, now how weird would that be? Beer. OMG! I might have just invented something in my mind. Consider a spice or seasoning, the entire spice shop is available to you, indeed, the whole of nature itself.

Baking powder can be added in small amount if a lighter cracker is desired. But I wouldn't bother if the crackers are intended to hold something or to dip into something. If delicate crackers is what is desired, then by all means, do.

Uno tipo de galletas mas favorito mio es CHEEZ-IT. Duplicating that, I use mostly white flour, small amount of butter, a great cheddar (sometimes augmented with real Parmigiano and other times cleaning out the cheese drawer and mixing the remnants of whatever I have in there,) and milk, or milk and cream mixed. Sometimes I do add baking powder to those because in that case I do not intend to dip them or spread them with anything.

You can top with anything too. Some people like to paint a thin layer of oil, some like to stick sea salt onto the oil. Once I saw some really cool Japanese designer crackers where they created diagonal bands of various seasonings, seeds, etc, so that when cut each cracker had at least three bands and all were slightly different. Leave it to the Japanese to take it to an extreme like that. I do admire that propensity and that design sense. I'm too impatient, myself. I bet they used rice flour and both black and white sesame seeds as two of the topping bands. Maybe I'll do that too some day just to show off.

I love dough. I just love it. Playing with dough, feeling it in my hands, transports me back to those halcyon pre-kindergarden days with my Play Doh factory making all kind of odd little things, letting them harden over night then making my mum buy me more Play Doh. Except now with real dough I actually can eat it. Whatever happened to all those little Play Doh objects, treasures surely, can only be understood by a regretful sequence of unfortunate accidents.