Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Grain Free Almond Crackers

Sometimes you just want something crunchy, or you want something to spread your favorite dip on rather than just eat it with a spoon. This is one of the banes of low carb/paleo existence. Luckily, it's dead easy to whip up some almond crackers to satisfy on both counts! You can enjoy them as is or use them as vehicles for other tasty food such as guacamole or pate. You could even make them into dessert by adding some cinnamon or pie spice to the dough and perhaps a touch of honey or maple syrup.



GRAIN FREE ALMOND CRACKERS

ingredients:
1 cup almond flour
1 egg white
1 pinch salt

(that's it!)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a bowl, mix together the almond flour, egg white, and salt until it forms a paste.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Make sure you use parchment paper, because if you don't you'll end up chipping your crackers out of the pan. Place the dough in the middle and top with another piece of parchment paper. Using a rolling pin (or any other cylindrical instrument), roll out the dough as thin as you can get it. Try to make it take up the whole cookie sheet if you can. Super thin. I mean it!

Peel off the top layer of paper and score the dough with a knife into whatever size crackers you want. Bake in the 325 oven for 10 minutes and then check on the crackers. You are looking for them to color ever so slightly. A little color means crispy, but a lot of color means burned nut taste, which is no good. If the edges have started to color nicely, remove them to a plate and put the remaining crackers back in the oven. Keep doing this, checking every 5 minutes and removing the golden crackers, until finally they are all baked to perfection.

Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

You can make many variations on thee crackers by adding in different seasonings to the dough base. Go nuts! (hur hur)

63 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you make your own nut flours or do you buy them somewhere? is it just super finely ground nut?

Elizabeth said...

Yep it's just ground up nuts.

The brand I get is the Trader Joe's brand. They don't blanch the nuts, as you can tell from the way the crackers look. Anyway, TJ brand is only about $3.50/lb. Bob's Red Mill also makes almond flour. I think theirs is more finely ground and it's blanched, but it's also way more expensive - $13.50/lb.

Anyway, if you can't find almond flour in the store or it's too expensive, you can make it yourself. Just grind up almonds in a food processor! I used to do that instead of buying the flour, but I did it so much I dulled my food processor blade.

Bryce said...

Hey Elizabeth,

Thanks for the recipe! I'm thinking of making these, but I wonder, if I were going for more of a buttery cracker, how would you recommend I get that effect. Brushing butter over them as they cook? Adding butter directly to the mixture?

Thanks again.
Regards,
Bryce

Elizabeth said...

Bryce - Thanks! I would be inclined to brush melted butter over the top as they bake rather than adding butter to the dough.

Anonymous said...

yum! these look perfect.

Darcey Blue said...

I've made these in a similar fashion, but added some mesquite flour and coconut oil and they taste like graham crackers. So...putting oil in the batter works, just not too much. I like to salt mine, or add flakes of nori for more flavor too.

Laura in Arizona said...

Another excellent recipe. I made yesterday and came out perfect! I have a lot of whole raw almonds in my freezer so I made my own flour/meal in my food processor then used it to mix in the other ingredients. Thanks so much!

Greg at Live Fit said...

I'll have to try these. I got my first container of almond butter the other day. Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth

These are fabulous and very versatiles, I made ginger ones, added flax to others, some with onion salt to eat with cream cheese and it makes a very acceptable substitute for short pastry. Thanks so much for the recipe, it is now in my 'staples' section.

Fly

primaljourney said...

Hi Elizabeth, I just stumbled across your site and what an amazing blog you have, some really great recipes that I look forward to trying :) Thanks, Michelle

Anonymous said...

I made these today and they are awesome! I followed the recipe and they were just great! thank you!

Anonymous said...

I recently started doing the GAPS diet and am excited to have found your site, as I think it will be helpful in finding things I can eat!!

Prof. Steven M. Platek said...

really nice! Thanks for posting this recipe. I made the fatal mistake of thinking that the parchment paper was an unnecessary ingredient, alas, i was sadly mistaken. I had to literally scrape the crackers out of the cookie sheet, but not I have croutons. Thanks so much.

Elizabeth said...

Prof - Sorry you ended up with croutons! I edited the original recipe to highlight the importance of the parchment paper after hearing of you experience.

Steve said...

These are tasty! I really enjoy them!

Anonymous said...

OK, trying them today! I am pregnant, but doing Atkins for 13 years and DYING for crackers!

Unknown said...

I made these as soon as I saw this recipe. They're perfect! Very filling, though.

Jac said...

can ground almonds be used? cos i've been to baking shops in my area (i live in Malaysia), the closest thing they have is almond flour/hazelnut flour.. if so..then ground cashews would be fun!

Sarah K. said...

Wow! These are awesome and so ridiculously easy! I am going to make them all the time, and add different ingredients.

Since I am new to being a bakestress, I just used an empty wine bottle as opposed to a rolling pin. :)

Brandon said...

Elizabeth!

I love how simple these are. It's absolutely necessary for some people to buy minimal ingredients, as it fits their budget, but still eat healthy.

A new reader,

Brandon

Anonymous said...

I Googled to find a recipe for Paleo crackers and found your blog. These were so easy! I made them with pecan meal (had to add extra pecan meal to get the right consistency) and with flax meal (I had to add an extra egg white). can't wait to try them again with seasonings.

Thanks for posting!

Kristie

Anonymous said...

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Joan Stepsen
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Non-Nosher said...

Thank you Elizabeth. I am gluten-free, Celiac, plus SIBO. I've started a SIBO (and Celiac, gluten free) blog, and quoted and put a link to your recipe.

This is the best/only SIBO, Celiac safe cracker that I have found in my now 5 month journey.

You have made one human being so happy. I cannot thank you enough. I quoted your recipe with links back to your site and this particular page.

May many, many people become as excited about finding this as I have!

Grace 77x7 said...

Is there any chance of a modification to this recipe without egg white?

We have an egg intolerance at our house, but would love to have some yummy as well as "safe" crackers.

The Celiac Diva said...

Thank you so much for this!! I just made them, so YUM! I've been dying for something crunchy and my Celiac tummy hates just about anything non-paleo and meats. So this was AWESOME! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Great recipe! I made them with sun dried tomatoes, garlic seasoning and a parmesan romano asiago cheese mix. Love it!

chava said...

Great recipe! I will go try it now. I just ran out of my flax cracker and i dont have flax in the house, but i do have groumd almonds!:)

Grace 77x7
soak ground flax in water for 20 minutes, it will make a "slimy" batter, add to this recipe instead of eggs. It will be the binder.

:)

Karen W said...

You are a star! I tried this as the pastry in my paleo mince pie experiment and it worked a treat. As I rolled it a little thicker it needed cooking slightly longer but only about 5 minutes.

Anjanette said...

THANK YOU! These are getting rave reviews from my men today! Served them with homemade roasted red pepper hummus. Yum!

Seloria said...

Friend put me on to your blog. Very happy she did. How long do these keep typically? Plan to make them as I've been dying for a cracker and am trying Paleo.

William said...

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Corrick family said...

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/blanchedalmondflour5lb.aspx Great place for almond flour. Thanks for the awesome recipe!

maroonblazer said...

Hey,
I just found this recipe (recently started eating Paleo) and so gave it a try. I ran into the following problems:

I couldn't find "almond flour" but Trader Joe's had something called "Almond Meal" which I took to be suitable given other folks in the comments talked about simply grinding almonds instead.

The 1-cup flour to 1 egg white ratio seemed to make the dough waay too dry, so i added another egg white and a little more flour to get to "paste" consistency.

When I tried to peel away the top layer of parchment half the dough stuck to the top layer. I ended up scraping it off and re-rolling it again, this time not quite so thin. I also used wax paper for the top layer which seemed to also help with the sticking. While the second time wasn't as bad as the first, there still a considerable amount of dough stuck to the top layer of paper.

Anyone else run into any of these problems? Was adding the extra egg white my undoing?

Elizabeth said...

Sorry it didn't work for you! I used TJ's almond meal in the original recipe, so that shouldn't be the issue. When you mix the almonds and egg white together it just barely incorporates and looks a little crumbly, but will hold together if you press it. I suspect the extra egg white you added just gave it too much moisture. If you're up for trying it again, here's what I would do: try the 1 cup to 1 egg white ratio again and look for that crumbly, just barely holding together texture. If it still won't stick together when you press it, add water 1 tsp at a time until it does. Hopefully if you do this it shouldn't be wet enough to stick to the parchment paper, but if it's still sticking I would try greasing the parchment paper instead of tinkering with the dough. Hope that helps!!

maroonblazer said...

Ah, gotcha! Ok, I'll give it another go.

Thanks so much!

Dani said...

Hi,
I am 6 weeks into an extremely limited Candida & food allergy diet... my hubby made these for me and I love, love, love them! It is sooo nice to be able to make crackers with the limited ingredients I can have. Thanks so much for posting the recipe, I am sooooooo grateful!
Dani

Dani said...

Hi again... I forgot to mention that I can not have eggs, so we used flax meal (1 tbsp) and water (3 tbsp) as my egg replacer... ever so good! Thanx again!!!
Dani

Claudia said...

I made these, rolling the dough between two silpat mats, and chilling it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes before peeling off the top mat. Seems to solve the sticky problem.

Happy to have found this recipe. Thanks!

Pamela Fox said...

Love this recipe, it's so easy. I made it along with some eggplant spread the other day:
http://pamelagoesprimal.com/post/10196167980/almond-crackers-eggplant-spread

Tara Fischer said...

I haven't made these yet but they look great. My question is does anyone know how long they keep if kept in an airtight container? I have an 8 month old that is starting finger foods so I'd like to offer her different variations of this recipe instead of cheerios and animal crackers. Would love to make up a huge batch and store it. Any advice would be appreciated!

Ash said...

we have nut allergies here; what could I use instead of almond flour?

Dilettante Dieter said...

Thank you! I just made these and they came out great. I'm not a baker, so I need to learn how to roll it out so the edges aren't much thinner than the rest (and burn). Love the tips about the parchment paper and thinner is better. I'm so happy; I have crackers!

Shannon said...

Love these crackers and so did my whole family!! Put a little garlic seasoning in, I will make these again and again!!

Brad said...

Just made these, and I was so surprised when I took a bite of one of the crackers and found the taste to be.. amazing!

It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean it's simply ground almonds and egg white but it tastes nothing like almonds.

theresa said...

You can also make round crackers by placing a dab on the parchment paper then taking a cup and spraying it with a safe oil or even dipping it in water and flattening the blob. I need round crackers to make little sandwhich crackers for the kids.

Anonymous said...

great recipe. I just started a grain free diet. I added dehydraded vegetables for a savory cracker. Thanks!

gfreechickadee said...

Hi, these look good! For those who are on GAPS or into Weston A. Price nutrition, here is a tip.... nuts have enzymes in them that keep you from absorbing nutrients. Soak your nuts over night, then drain, and then dry them on a cookie sheet in the oven on lowest setting, or in a food dehydrator if you have them. This makes them more digestible (gives your digestive track a break so it can heal) and removes the chemical enzymes so you can absorb vitamins.

Tiffany said...

These crackers are awesome and super easy! I made a paleo-friendly chili today that was uber spicy. Clearly it needed some crackers to go with it and I found these. Thank you SO much for sharing! :)

maroonblazer said...

Tiffany: Can you share your chili recipe? I haven't been able to find one that satisfies.

InnaC said...

These are delicious! Thanks for posting this recipe!

Anonymous said...

Hi there - I didn't have any almond flour or meal, so I used coconut flour instead!.... it was very dry so I added another egg white - still too dry so I added the two yolks (how to totally change the receipe.... lol - I kept the salt!!!). Anyway - it still worked - I had some wonderful crackers to have with my pate this evening...

Very happy - thank you! (Can't wait to try it with the proper ingredients ;-) )

Kate said...

These. Are. Amazing. My husband and I are 99% grain-free, and one of the things I missed the most was our frequent cheese & crackers snacks. These are perfect (and save me the embarrassment of having to eat goat cheese directly out of the container with a spoon ;) ). I made my 2nd and 3rd batches yesterday (one w/garlic and onion powder and another with fennel seeds and herbes de Provence), and I used the pizza stone. It made the already delicious crackers even crispier! Thanks so much for sharing.

Anonymous said...

These were great! I added a little bit of rosemary, just for some herb flavor. I def have to double or triple the recipe next time. thanks!!

Heather said...

I personally use 1 egg and 100 grams home made mayo, i am on a low-carb diet and it works also helps bring out flavor of the cracker, especially with some cheese and italian spices :) om nom nom.

Vanessa said...

These are great. To get some omega 3s (almonds have a high content omega 6s), I added some ground flax seeds. I like to also add chopped fresh rosemary (fresh is the key) and some minced garlic. I then sprinkle sea salt on top before baking. I probably make these every other week, they are so good!

Anonymous said...

Just made these crackers: I've tried three other cracker recipes and these are the best of the four. Thank you

Anonymous said...

Thank you for such a simple way to enjoy the salty crunch of a cracker/chip! They are awesome to dip in salsa, and we're already planning the next batch and with which different seasonings to experiment.

William O. Beeman said...

you can buy almond flour at Trader Joe's or order on line. Honeyville Farms sells five pounds for a good price

Jess, James and Ana said...

I have been Grain Free for approximately 3 weeks and have been having a hankering for crackers. I made these today for the first time. I can't agree with you more about how thin you need to roll the dough, my first batch was thicker and took much longer to cook and I didn't add enough salt. My second batch, I actually split the dough ball into 2 and rolled them out very thin and sprinkled garlic power on top before cooking and they turned out fantastic. The 2nd part of my second batch I melted some butter and brushed it on top of the crackers about 2 minutes before they were done baking and again, they turned out fantastic!!! Thank you for the recipe!!!!

Kate Hooley said...

Beautifully simple and oh so more ish
Thank you! This is the recipe I'd been looking for.
I am on the A.Junger cleanse at the mo, so substituted flaxseed and water goop for egg white.
Worked really well!

Anonymous said...

worked out as a great companion for home made chicken zoodle soup. I sprinkled poppy seeds and parmesan cheese on top. Also experimented and successfully used hazelnut flour instead of almond flour.

Anonymous said...

What is the reasoning behind using just the egg white rather than the entire egg? I'm just curious.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this! I'm not generally much of a cook, but I just tried this and it came out really well. :)

About to try a second batch with flax instead of an egg, and see if I can roll it out thinner/more evenly.

@Anonymous, just found this elsewhere on the web (re: why not use the whole egg): "If adding a whole egg adds too much moisture to your baking, try just adding an extra egg white (which is the part of the egg that really does the binding job)."

So I assume it's to keep the mixture on the drier side.