This weeks signature bake was certainly open to many interpretations, do I do a cracker, water biscuit, something puffy or a crisp-bread? Then do I go with seedy or plain, herby or spiced, oaty or buttery? The idea for the eventual biscuit came through a process of elimination. I’d already made oatcake biscuits and although the flavourings I had in mind would have worked, I wanted to try something new. The other eliminating factors came courtesy of the boyfriend, “don’t do water biscuit, they are too crumbly and messy” and “mehh, I’m not so keen on seedy and they get stuck in my teeth!”. As I was giving him the deciding vote on this one, I thought I may as well look for something I knew we’d both like. Ritz crackers!
I couldn’t simply make the replica of the famous brand, I would have to put my own take on it, to be able to call it my signature bake. The flavourings for my take on this buttery, flakey morsel were to add rosemary and parmasean cheese. I had thought about adding chilli instead of the rosemary, but I think I’ll save that one until next time.
The problem with typing in Ritz cracker recipes as your search term is ithat you simply find loads of recipes where people have used the crackers as a componant to a recipe, from Crab au Gratin where it has a ritz cracker crumb topping to a Quince and Manchego Cheesecake with a ritz cracker base! However after spending some time surfing around the internet I found a few recipes that had been created by other bloggers in the US, and decided as it is an American product I thought it best to follow the homegrown writers.
Using two recipes for comparison, The Cupcake Project and Sweet Precision, I measured out all of the ingredients and thought about my own additions. Rosemary can be pretty overpowering if you use too much and end up making the biscuit taste a bit soapy. I had two fresh springs from the plant that we’re managing to keep alive (nothing to do with me), and chopped the leaves finely, giving me enough for about ½ teaspoon. The parmasan, is a nice dry cheese, that should add a nice crispiness to the cracker. Again you don’t want too much otherwise you won’t taste the rosemary or the cheese that you’re serving them with. I finely grated enough cheese for about ½ cup (American measurements for this one keep in with the theme!).
Sticking with the pain free method I added all of the dry ingredients into the food blender and whizzed until combined. Then I added the butter, and whizzed again until it resembled breadcrumbs, then added the oil. I chose to go with the olive oil for this one and I felt it would work better for the other Italian flavours, plus I didn’t have any vegetable oil at home.
Then it was time for the binding agent…water. Now I had recipe 2 or 3 times and felt confident about this next part. I had the water measured out and started to pour it in, ½ a cup at a time. By the time I had added the second ½ cup I could see that there mix had gone past the point of dough and as now more like a thick paste**. I stopped adding the water and instead added more flour to bring it back. After adding almost a whole cup of flour the dough was now formed. I started to question the authenticity of the recipes and whether American all purpose flour was fundamentally different to our own plain flour.
Turnin the dough out onto the floured surface I split the ball in half and started to roll it out while the oven (with thermometer in place) got to the correct temp, 400F or 200°C. Rolling them out to about 3-5mm, I used a 5cm floured cookie cutter to cut them out. Once they were on the pre-lined baking tray, I added the characteristic hole featured on the famous cracker. Unfortunately I did not have a nifty gadget, like Nancy and Norman had on GBBO, instead I used the traditional four pronged fork. Now pronged and prepped they were now ready for the oven.
Once the alloted baking time of 12 minutes was over, I removed the first batch and stuck the next lot in. After impatiently waiting for the first batch to cool, I tested one. They definitely tasted like the famous ritz’s I was trying to emulate, and the colour was right, but they were still a little soft in the middle.
The second batch were better in colour and snap, but because they were left a litte longer in the oven, they some had bitterness to the edges. It was at this point I thought I would try reducing the heat and leave them in a little longer. This resulted in a biscuit that took far longer to colour and by the time it did, it tasted over baked and bitter.
The best result would be the happy medium between the first batch and the second. There was a good taste from the cheese, and it had a good snap, especially after they cooled down. One thing I would change for next time would be to add more rosemary, as I don’t think the flavour was consistant through out the bake. In order to get the salty flavour that is iconic of the little favourites, you had to brush them with oil, straight after they come out the oven, and sprinkle over the with salt. For a more artisan, fancy edge to the biscuits, I think I’ll use maldon salt flakes next time, or maybe some extra parmesan.
I’m not sure this first attempt will match the mass manufactured variety, but it’s nice to have something a little different and filled with less unpronounceable ingredients. However the taste fresher and are just as moreish!!
**It wasn’t until 3 days after making these that I have realised my major mistake. The recipe calls for ⅔ cups, which is two thirds of a cup not 2 to 3 cups! All of my recipe rescuing with additional flour and blaspheming the American flour was in vain, I had simply read the recipe wrong! Thinking that American all-purpose flour must be different to UK plain. This may also have contributed to the softness in the bake, I’ll just have to wait to find out!