In case you need a kitchen project during this holiday week, why not make some homemade crackers? Think of them as small, savory shortbread cookies; they’re perfect for serving turkey salad, leftover cheese or dips, or anything else spready in texture that you’ve constructed out of Thanksgiving leftovers. A tiny bit of garlic powder gives the crackers a gentle zing, though the dough would adapt nicely to black pepper, cayenne, or other finely ground, dried spices.
This is another recipe from Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day. I was a bit suspicious, initially: the butter & liquid content seemed too high to make a roll-out dough and avoid major sticking-to-the-counter problems. Of course, I was wrong, and the whole recipe worked beautifully.
Buttery crackers
- 1-1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 T sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 10 T melted unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- 6 T cold milk (or buttermilk)
- egg wash
- fine sea salt
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place all ingredients except the egg wash & fine sea salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix with the paddle attachment for 1-2 minutes, until the dough is cohesive and well-blended. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll to 1/8 inch thick (flour as you roll, and turn the dough over once or twice to roll on the opposite side). Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork, then cut out 2 to 3 inch circles with a floured biscuit cutter. Transfer the cutouts to cookie sheets lined with parchment, spacing them about 1/2 inch apart. Bake crackers for 16 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom after 8 minutes. Cool directly on the pans. If crackers aren’t sufficiently crisp, return to a hot oven for 5 minutes.








While I am on the record as a white chocolate hater, I just can’t resist a good sale. Tucked into the back of all Williams-Sonoma stores is a rack or two of discounted goods. Forget the silicone trivets, holiday plates, scented dish soap and decorative towels–I head straight for the food. W-S discounts by half any food items about to expire. It’s the perfect time to buy things like Guittard chocolate, or smoked paprika. This week, I scored a box of Guittard milk discs and 3 boxes of Guittard white discs. But back to the first line: I don’t even like white chocolate! I now needed to find a way to use 36 ounces of expiring-in-December, yet fine quality, white chocolate…using the milk chocolate won’t be a problem.
Heat oven to 350. Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with foil; grease lightly. Place the brown sugar in a bowl; rub the zest into the brown sugar vigorously with the back of a spoon, until the sugar is fragrant. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan; remove from heat and cool to just barely warm. Stir the brown sugar & zest into the melted butter (in the saucepan); continue stirring until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla extract and key lime juice.
In a separate bowl, stir together flours & baking powder, then add to the mixture in the saucepan. Use a rubber spatula to combine thoroughly, then stir in the white chocolate & nuts. Spread the mixture evenly into the greased, foil-lined pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes until lightly browned.
Saturday-night-college-football grilling: one ribeye, a baked potato, and for dessert, an apple crisp. Within 25 minutes of lighting the coals, my
For dessert, an apple crisp: I added an 8″ round baking stone, waited 20 minutes for it to heat up at the higher temperature, then baked the apple crisp at 350. The crisp cooked quite a bit faster than I expected (translation: it was a bit more browned at the edges than usual)!