Sunday, August 30, 2009

Rye crackers!

So blah blah I've been really busy and blah blah blah haven't baked blah blah I suck etc.

But it's true! I've had classes from 9-5 for two weeks (I'd like to thank sudoku and electronic scrabble from keeping me from killing myself) and when I wasn't in class I was either doing homework, napping or watching trashy reality television. Very important things, obviously. But things have settled down a lot recently and I finally had time to ask Joe what he would like me to bake. And he had very specific ideas: Crackers. Rye crackers.



Rye crackers? Sure. Google is my friend and I found a recipe pretty quickly. Seriously, what did people do before the internet? I already don't remember my life before my iPhone, a dark age in which I couldn't access celebrity gossip at every moment of every day. How did I live?


INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup (3 3/4 ounces) whole rye (pumpernickel) flour
• 1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) butter
• 3 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) caraway seeds
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) water
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• Additional salt for sprinkling (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Combine the flours, cocoa and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly, using your fingers, a pastry blender or fork or a mixer. Add the caraway seeds and toss to mix.

Combine the water and molasses in a measuring cup and stir to mix. Gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredients, mixing till you can gather the dough into a cohesive ball.

TO SHAPE AND BAKE THE CRACKERS: Divide the dough into 3 pieces; roll it out, one piece at a time, till it's 1/16, inch thick, being sure to flour underneath when necessary so the dough doesn't stick to the work surface.

Use a baker's bench knife, a sharp knife, a pizza wheel or a square cookie cutter to cut the dough into 2-inch squares. Transfer the squares to prepared baking sheets.

Bake the crackers until they begin to brown and smell toasty, 18 to 23 minutes. Remove the crackers from the oven, transfer to a rack and cool completely before serving. Store in airtight containers.
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If you like rye and caraway then you'll like these. The only issue I had with them was that since the dough was pretty dark, it was hard to tell when they were done and I ended up under baking a bunch of them. In my oven, these needed at least 25 minutes.

I would tell you that I'll have another post up soon about the apple crisp I made the other day but Joe ate all of it before I could take a picture of it. However, Brian came over for dinner and I am currently quietly moving the bowl of tiramisu I made today closer and closer to his chair in hopes he'll eat thirds. He lost 13 lbs since he moved out, I can't imagine why.

In other news, let's talk about what else has been consuming my life and that is BABIES. I've always known vaguely that I wanted to have kids some day but that changed last year I was doing my pediatric rotation. It confirmed my desire to have kids someday until one day I took care of an infant whose parents were at a class learning how to take care of one of his medical devices. So I was with him a lot to give him his feedings. And while I was coaxing him to finish one of his bottles, his big blue eyes looked into mine and a small bomb went off in my uterus and said, "OH HELLO. LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF. MY NAME IS BIOLOGICAL CLOCK, MAY I SUGGEST YOU HAVE BABIES IMMEDIATELY?" and I was all, "Shut up, ovaries, I cannot have babies anytime soon!" Hormones reply with, "No problem, maybe you can just take this little guy home? I'm sure nobody will notice."

Obviously I didn't steal the baby but now whenever I saw children my ovaries go, "HELLO WE CAN'T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU ARE NOT YET PREGNANT. PLEASE REMEDY THIS SITUATION ASAP."

It's very distracting, I wasn't aware that you turn 21 and then have sudden urges to have litters of babies. Joe tolerates it now but I'm sure he'll get weary of it when he finds the darling bassinet I bought.

Just kidding.

3 comments:

Katy ~ said...

Your rye crackers are so nice and thin and look crispy good!

I think there's still plenty of time left on your clock.

Katie said...

4-6 babies please.

Unknown said...

Mom is so going to faint when she sees the baby post.