I'm kind of amazed there aren't a lot of low carb crackers on the market yet, at least none I've seen yet. They're actually pretty easy to make. Much more forgiving than bread or cake things.

I've tried a couple of cracker recipes using Wheat Protein Isolate instead of flour, or using a combination of flours. I'm still experimenting because the texture isn't 100% perfect yet, but I've had some yummy experiments to eat. Some a little TOO crunchy, some stuck to the pan like you wouldn't believe, but all in all, they were edible!

This last batch was more like a cheese cookie, than a cracker. I used quite a lot of oat flour, some soy, some WPI and some almond meal. It's a too delicate cracker though, a bit too crumbly, though it is utterly delicious. The texture reminds me of almond cookies. These taste kind of a lot like Cheezits!

I'll try to guess at my recipe, I modified it a lot and had to dump in more flours to get the dough to be stiff enough.

1/2 cup butter
1-1.5 cups of shredded sharp cheddar
1 egg yolk

Cream them together (I used food processor) until they're a nice creamy mixture. Soften the butter a bit first. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a bowl mix up about 2 cups of flours (I'm experimenting with this still, I used about .5 cup almond, .5 oat, .75 cup wheat protein isolate, .25 soy flour). But I had to add more oat flour to get the dough to clump rather than cream. Next time, I'll use more WPI and soy I think. The WPI is very gluey and will make it stick together more. I think the course flours like the oat and almond tend to make it more crumbly.

Don't get me wrong, the crumbliness is kind of nice, but it's too crumby for a cracker!

Ok, mix together the flours real well, then add them to the butter/cheese mixture until it forms a nice dough ball you can work with. Mine was, even after adding a lot more flour, still pretty sticky and wet.

Then you take the dough, split it into two dough balls. Roll the dough ball out by hand into a log, make the circumference cracker sized. Wrap the logs in cling film and freeze them for 30-45 minutes (30 wasn't enough for my dough). Cut them into 1/4" crackers, put them on a greased cookie sheet about 1/2" between each (they don't spread, I do them closer).

Paint the crackers with the egg white you didn't use when you used the yolk up above, gives them a nice brown finish. And maybe sprinkle a bit of salt on them.

Bake at 375 for about 12-14 minutes. You might want to turn the pan around halfway through. My oven seems to cook faster in the back.

Remove from the pan and let them cool on a plate.

Makes about 50 crackers.

Once I perfect a cracker recipe, I'll post it. But this should serve as something of a guideline. It is pretty hard to go wrong with crackers, IMHO. You can use things like parmesean cheese, spices from the cupboard, cheeses, herbs, nuts, all sorts of things to give them flavor.

Substitute Wheat Gluten for WPI if you don't have it.

Here's another try.


* Exported from MasterCook *

Flax Crackers

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 40 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 cup Wheat protein Isolate
1/2 cup flaxseed Meal
1/4 cup oats, rolled (raw) -- Made into flour
1/4 cup soy flour
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Add spices to taste. Recommend dehydrated onion flakes, cayenne pepper, garlic powder or whatever sounds good. -- finely chopped

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Put all the dry ingredients together and mix them well. I recommend a food processor. Add in the coconut oil and mix until the mixture is crumbly. Slowly add just enough water so that a ball is formed, but don't let it get too wet. If it does get overly sodden, add more wheat.

Recommend baking on a non-stick surface or parchment paper. A greasy pan might make the crackers too greasy. I used a "Matfer Exopat Nonstick Baking/Roasting Sheet" and that worked great.

Bake for 8 minutes and check them. They should be dry and golden brown. If not, turn the pan around in the oven to equalize the baking and check again every few minutes until they're right.

Description:
"34 Calories each, less than 1 gram carb if made with WPI and Flaxseed Meal"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 34 Calories; 3g Fat (66.7% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 1g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 1mg Cholesterol; 50mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

NOTES : If you don't have Wheat Protein Isolate use Wheat Gluten.

I think you can use 1 cup of a highly glutenous wheat flour to give it stick-togetherness, then use a cup of another mixture of flours to make the crackers a little less tough.

My dough came out a bit too greasy and the crackers needed lots of extra cooking. I think I will try next time with 1/4 cup of coconut oil instead of 1/3.

Use butter or some other oil in place of coconut oil if you want.

I use flaxseed meal because it contains lots of omega-3 fatty acids and there might be some nutritional and weightloss benefits to using coconut oil, but the claims seems pretty wild and their doesn't seem to be a lot of substantiation yet.

Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Would rolling the dough and making light cuts to form squares and then cooking at a lower temp ( sort of like drying them out ) be of any useful help. I have been looking for a cracker recipe for sme time. Seems the problem is around the lack of wheat flour which of course in the enemie's camp.

I'm having great luck with these crackers now. I modified it again. Coconut Oil is just 1/4 cup now (down from 1/3). I dribble in water until the dough just forms a ball (in the food processor). Actually, this time I used some coconut milk instead of water because I had some I needed to use up.

Then I roll them out either right on the baking sheet or my Silipat gizmo. I like them thin, like 1/4" or less. I used a pizza cutter to cut them. I didn't separate them or anything. Just stuck it right into the oven.

I think 8 min is not nearly long enough in my oven on 400. It ended up being closer to 16 min. But I was checking them every 4 min or so.

Basically I use one cup of WPI and one cup of coarse flours, like flax meal, almond meal, oat flour. I decided to stop using soy any longer because of concerns I have about it. And besides, it just doesn't taste good.

My batch I did today are light, very crunchy. Unfortunately I forgot to salt them so they're a little on the plain side. I did throw in some celery seed, parmesean and other spices though, so it isn't a total loss!

Version 2 of my cracker recipe.


* Exported from MasterCook *

Flax Crackers

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 60 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 cup Wheat protein Isolate
1/2 cup flaxseed Meal
1/4 cup oats, rolled (raw)
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Add spices to taste. Recommend dehydrated onion flakes, cayenne pepper, garlic powder or whatever sounds good. -- finely chopped

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Put all the dry ingredients together and mix them well. I recommend a food processor. Add in the coconut oil and mix until the mixture is crumbly. Slowly add just enough water so that a ball is formed, but don't let it get too wet. If it does get overly sodden, add more wheat.

Recommend baking on a non-stick surface or parchment paper. I roll the crackers very thin, 1/4" or less. Use a pizza wheel to cut them. You don't need to separate them. I sometimes just roll them out right on the pan or sheet I'm cookign them on and then pop them into the oven. Sprinkle lightly with salt and press the salt into the top of the crackers with your rolling pin.

Bake for 12 minutes and check them. They should be dry and golden brown. If not, turn the pan around in the oven to equalize the baking and check again every four minutes until they're nice and dry and crunchy. Last time it took me around 16-20 minutes to get them to that stage.

If you find they're not quite as crunchy as you want. Put them onto a sheet and back them for 10 min or more at 300 degrees until they reach desired crispness.

Description:
"Version 2"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 21 Calories; 1g Fat (61.2% calories from fat); 1g Protein; 1g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; trace Cholesterol; 34mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

NOTES : If you don't have Wheat Protein Isolate use Wheat Gluten.

I think you can use 1 cup of a highly glutenous wheat flour to give it stick-togetherness, then use a cup of another mixture of flours to make the crackers a little less tough.


Use butter or some other oil in place of coconut oil if you want.

I use flaxseed meal because it contains lots of omega-3 fatty acids and there might be some nutritional and weightloss benefits to using coconut oil, but the claims seems pretty wild and their doesn't seem to be a lot of substantiation yet.

Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Well, every time I make these they just get better. I upped the parmesean to about 1/2 cup, remembered to sprinkle salt on top, used some almond meal and WOW! These are super, if I must say so myself.

This looks great! Thank you, thank you! Just what I need to break up the low carb blues. We have been getting bored with the usual fare.

Is it really ok to use wheat gluten instead of wpi?

~~Amaara

I haven't tried it with wheat gluten, but it should be fine. I'm almost out of WPI so my next attempt I might be trying with it!

BTW: Be sure to cook these on parchment paper or a silipat or exopat thing because man... they stick like crazy! I've tried to do them on a oil sprayed cookie sheet and they still stuck!

That reminds me, I gotta go buy more of those Silipat cooking sheets! They're amazing.

Oh yes, my technique is evolving when I make these. Since I make a fresh back each weekend. I use a pizza wheel to cut them before I back them. I don't separate them at all. They break up easily after baking. Then be sure to sprinkle the salt on top before baking. It makes a huge difference.

If anyone finds any other spices, cheese that are good, let me know. I'm sort of in a rut always using parmesean cheese and garlic. Still... its a tasty rut!

One of my favorite breakfasts is to grab a handful of these and slice up some canadian cheddar and take it to work to munch on all morning. Yum!

I just found out my oven thermostat is WAY off, like about 50 degrees. So when you use this recipe bake them at 350' not 400!

oh Nancy!

your crackers are great!

I didn't have the right kind of oats, so I substituted oat bran.

They still came out great and are probably a little lower in carbs.

The great thing about these is that all the low carb cracker recipes I've seen so far have incorporated mostly cheese - and with a cheesy cracker, I wasn't into adding a heavy dip - but these would be good with a hunk of cheese or a nice chive or salsa.

Now I'm thinking they could be cut into strips and made into cracker "straws" for parties?

Thanks again, barefoot!

Do you have a site with your other recipes?

I'm not a big fan of soy stuff. It just sticks in my throat. I found this product (thanks to a link on this site) for ThickenThin not/Starch. Their recipe (see below) uses just their thickener and nuts. I had non Atkins members grabbing at these crackers. They are good. They have other cool recipes as well on their site.

http://www.expertfoods.com/Recipes/...s-from-nuts.php