These crackers are a variation on the Sesame Cracker recipe here. I had been reading about vernacular Irish cooking and looking for a recipe for traditional oat cakes- thin, slow cooked and made from a combination of rolled, ground and whole oats. I had been experimenting with the Rose Shulman recipe, and ended up with an all oat recipe which. I use oat flour, but grinding up rolled oats in a food processor until they’re a coarse meal also works very well. The combination of the whole grain flavor, olive oil, salt and sugar is pretty much the same as the traditional oat cake, and cooked slowly in a moderate oven, they crisp up well. As with the Shulman recipe, you can add sesame seeds, and I like to make them with the addition of raw millet. They’re great with cheddar cheese.
2 cups oat flour and/or rolled oats ground as fine as possible in a food processor
(1/ 2 cup millet, optional)
4 tablespoons olive oil or butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Enough water to form a dough
Preheat oven to 325. If using purchased oat flour: in the bowl of a food processor or a stand mixer with a paddle, add the flour, salt and sugar. If using rolled oats: using a food processor with the blade in place, pulse the oats until they’re ground fine. Add the sugar and salt and mix.
Add the millet, if using. The food processor will tend to process the millet, so if you want the whole seeds intact, you can transfer the oat mixture to a bowl and stir by hand, or use a stand mixer.
Add enough water to form a stiff dough.
Turn the dough onto a piece of parchment large enough to fit a cookie sheet, and form into a rough rectangle. Flour the top of the dough to keep it from sticking to a rolling pin, and roll the dough out to 1/8″ to 1/4″ thickness. There is no need to flour the parchment paper, the crackers will release from the paper as they bake. Using a knife, cut the rolled dough into 2″ squares, without cutting the parchment paper. Transfer the crackers to a cookie sheet using the parchment paper to slide the dough onto the cookie sheet. Place the sheet in the middle of a 325 degree oven. The crackers should bake slowly, and check them after 20 minutes. They will lose their doughy-ness, and will feel firm when done. Keep checking every 5 minutes, and they should be done after 30-35 minutes.
The crackers can be stored in an air tight container for a week.
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