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Back near the end of March, I reported trying a recipe, Havremel Flatbrod (Oatmeal Flatbread) from Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s Complete Book of Small Breads. I was disappointed in them, as they were chewy, even though I baked them for nearly twice as long as the recipe specified. I was not planning to bake this recipe again, but my husband gobbled them up. He LIKED them, and he has been asking for them again. I decided to give it another try and see if I could get a more cracker-like result.
I again used the given variation where 1 cup of whole wheat flour is substituted for 1 cup of the AP flour. This time I used Gold Medal rather than the King Arthur AP. I did not dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk; there was no reason given, and other recipes of this type do not do so. I mixed it in with the flour, and I also added the salt to the flour, rather than adding it to the melted butter with the 2 Tbs. sugar.
I used my Danish dough whisk to mix in the flour and buttermilk, alternating between the two, as stated, then stirred in the oats. I then used the flat beater to "knead" it for three minutes, on speed 2, adding a bit of pastry flour as it seemed slightly sticky.
In the course of rolling out each of the six pieces of dough, I made some discoveries. First of all, I used my heavy maple rolling pin. That dough did not have a choice but to roll out more thinly than last time! 🙂 I rolled each to a 33 x 39 cm. rectangle. (I find it a lot easier to cut even crackers if I use metric rather than English measurements.) Initially I rolled the dough on parchment with saran over the top, but the parchment kept buckling up under the dough and snagging it, so I decided to try rolling it on my silicone mat. That worked very well, along with picking up the dough every now and again and re-positioning it. I wondered if I could do without the parchment paper when baking the crackers. It turns out that I can. I flipped the dough over onto the saran, then carefully peeled off the silicone mat. I then turned the dough onto a baking sheet, and used my plastic pizza cutter to cut it into 3cm x 3cm squares.
I found that they needed 10 minutes to bake.
They still are not crisp, but I do like the thinner cracker I got this time. It was certainly a workout, rolling them out.
The recipe calls for rolling them on a pastry cloth with a rolling pin with a pastry sleeve. I don't know if that would let me get them yet thinner. I don't own either of those. The crackers are supposed to be rolled paper thin, but I'm not sure that I could handle a thinner dough than what I managed this time.
Even the crackers around the edges that were slightly crispy become chewy once cooled and stored. I wonder if the oats are the reason. I don't think that I will bake this recipe again. The taste is good, better than the first time, but the texture is not what I want.
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