Barley & Wine Crackers

Dawn Woodward, owner of Evelyn's Crackers in Toronto, Canada, and the author of this recipe baked at the Kneading Conference West 2012: inspired by the flavors of Greek biscotti and Baco Noir, an Ontario wine, they are are among her favorites although she no longer offers them for sale.

They can be baked as sheets and broken off in odd pieces after baking or they can be pre-cut with a pizza cutter and separated neatly afterwards. Your choice... I tried both and I thought the triangles were prettier and really not much more work but it is a matter of personal preference. Either way, they come out crispy and flavorful. The fragrance of the red wine is clearly discernable, boosted by the hint of exotic spices and the heat of the black pepper: I can understand getting addicted.
Probably written with a crowd in mind, the recipe printout distributed at the Conference would have yielded way too many crackers, so I simply halved everything and still got plenty. Also it may have contained a typo: when I added up the weights of all the liquids, I found that it called for more liquids than solids which doesn't seem the way to go for crackers. So I added in more flour. I used white whole wheat instead of regular whole wheat. I decreased by one third the amount of spice but you can add it back if you like really bold flavors. What follows is my adaptation of Dawn's recipe.

Ingredients:

• 700 g white whole wheat flour (I used Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill's)* 
• 165 g barley flour (I used Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill's)
• 20 g fine sea salt
• 10 g quatre-épice blend (or you can mix and match cinnamon, black pepper and clove according to your taste)
• 75 g red wine (all I had left) + 50 g water (or 125 g red wine, if you have it)
• 125 g extra-virgin olive oil
• 20 g wildflower honey
• 450 g water, at room temperature

Method:

1. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl
2. Combine all the liquids
3. Create a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquids while continuously stirring
4. When the mixture gets too thick to stir, turn out onto the table and knead until smooth and soft (Dawn notes that the dough will be pliable but slightly clay-like due to the barley flour)
5. Let rest 10 minutes then divide in 50 g balls and roll out into long ovals (Dawn suggests 75 g but when I rolled out the bigger balls, I got ovals that were too long for my half-sheet baking pans). Another option is to divide the dough in 150g balls and roll it out directly onto parchment paper 
6. Optional: dock or prick all over with a fork (I found the crackers baked more evenly that way) and pre-cut in desired shape with a pizza cutter
7. Place on parchment or bake directly on tiles in pre-heated 375°F/191°C oven
8. Bake until crisp (start checking after 10 minutes)
9. Cool on a rack
10. Enjoy!

* I used to bake a lot more with white whole wheat flour when I first introduced whole grain breads to my family but I had pretty much stopped doing so a couple of years ago: I found it too bland and by then everyone had gotten used to the fact that I would put in some whole grain in most breads and had actually learned to enjoy the taste.
But then I discovered Fairhaven's white whole wheat flour: it is still very mild (certainly not as flavorful as some of the red wheats I love so much) but it is speckled with bran which makes it both beautiful and fiber-rich and I find it a good substitute for all-purpose flour in many recipes where wheat doesn't play a starring role.
I realize many of you live too far away to have access to this particular flour but there may be a mill in your neighborhood or a natural food store selling bulk artisanal flours and it might be worth a look in case in case you'd like to try your hand at baking with stone-milled white whole wheat.
As for me, I like supporting my local mill, mostly because the miller, Kevin Christensen, is committed to organic grain: he is a firm believer in sustainable agriculture and by sustainable agriculture, he means organic farming. Living right on the Washington Coast as he does, he witnesses first-hand the damages chemical run-offs cause to fragile marine and river ecosystems: it happens regularly that beaches are closed and shellfish harvesting prohibited because of toxic algae blooms. So he works hand in hand with farmers and bakers to promote the demand for organic grains as a way to support healthy farmlands. That is a goal I can relate to.

These barley & wine crackers are being sent to Susan for Yeastspotting.

Buckwheat Crackers

Finally (almost) back! We have been without a home to really call our own for the past six months. We spent most of that time at our youngest son's house. We are immensely grateful to him and his wife for putting up with us while renovation work was going on in our new house. It made it possible to close the door and leave the mess behind at the end of each day, which was a great comfort as the amount of things that needed to be done was overwhelming at times, especially when the Man started painting against the clock so that the furniture could go against the walls and unpacking could begin. He said he never imagined retirement could be so exhausting.
To make a long story short, it's not over yet but the house is slowly turning into a home, so much so that we finally moved in last week and I was able to start baking again. For lack of time I didn't get to experiment with any new formula (that will come later when we come back from visiting the Man's parents in Belgium) but I was able to make a couple of batches of our staple bread, the Rustic Batard, and it was just heavenly to breathe in again the fragrance of baking bread.
I also made some whole grain crackers and before flying out to Europe (and putting Farine on hold again for a few weeks), I thought I would report on these as they are wholesome and quite easy to make. I used my new Kitchen Aid (my very first ever) and its pasta attachment to roll out the dough (what fun to create these long ribbons) but it can be done by hand with a rolling pin. Martha Rose Shulman recently wrote an article on whole grain cracker recipes for the New York Times. I tried the olive oil ones (some with grated Parmiggiano, some with za'atar, some with nigella seeds and some with sumac). They were quite good (although they could have used more salt) but our favorites were the Buckwheat Crackers. Lacking sesame seeds, I used chia seeds which I had on hand.

To Farine's readers who are familiar with the "galettes au sarrasin" (savory buckwheat crepes) made in Brittany and found in crêperies (crêpe restaurants) throughout France, I will tell this: if you try these crackers, you are in for a lovely Proustian moment...
I used buckwheat flour (bought in bulk already milled) and hard red winter wheat (which I milled just before mixing the dough). I didn't use any all-purpose flour. The crackers came out crunchy but tender.

Crackers

Barley & Wine Crackers
Buckwheat Crackers