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Brown rice porridge crispbreads

Catomi's picture
Catomi

Brown rice porridge crispbreads

In Tartine No. 3, Robertson says that all of the bread recipes (with the exception of the Rene-style loaves, which are too seedy) can be adapted for crispbreads simply by decreasing hydration to 50-60%. I decided to try this with the brown rice porridge bread, as I think rice crackers are tasty. I added some sesame seeds on top of most of them.

I wound up using:

250 g BRM whole wheat flour 

250 g KA bread flour

35 g wheat germ (from Whole Foods bulk bins)

13 g Morton coarse kosher salt

75 g starter (I use 100% rye, 100% hydration)

250 g distilled water (to get 50% hydration, unless I screwed up the math)

350 g cooked brown rice

The brown rice was rinsed three times and then cooked in 2x tap water. Unfortunately, I got distracted by Youngest Child right as the rice was coming to a boil. Husband said that quite a bit of water had boiled off, so he added an unspecified amount of water and set my timer for me. When the rice was done, it was rather sticky. I cooled it to room temp and coarsely chopped it in a grinder. I mixed all my ingredients (unlike my last batch of crispbreads, the dough was VERY sticky), covered with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight. 

Approximately 8 hours later, I removed it from the fridge and rolled it out with the pasta maker. I rolled the first ball to the #6 setting on the pasta maker, with the copious addition of more flour (I didn't measure exactly, but it seemed like i used about 1/4 cup for each 1/5 of the total dough). Sticky, sticky stuff. Rolling it to #6 was too thin to handle, so the rest were rolled to #5. Most were brushed with water and coated with sesame seeds, which ultimately mostly fell off. 

The #6 crispbreads were baked (on parchment paper) for 5-6 minutes at 425 degrees F, until they were starting to brown. The #5 crispbreads were baked for 7-8 minutes. They were all removed from the oven and allowed to cool while we ran an errand. On our return I baked them at 200 degrees F with a wooden spoon propping the oven door open, until they were dry and crisp. 

 

Now that I've actually compared to one of the crispbread recipes in the book, it's obvious that I used way too much water. Also, my recipe was much larger, which explains why I feel like I had neverending crispbreads. Next time I'll double check BEFORE actually mixing my ingredients. Oh well, this was an interesting experiment. 

 

Edit because I forgot to add flavor notes: tasty. Not quite as nutty as rice crackers I've bought commercially, but quite good. It will be tricky to stash these until our trip. I think I would either skip the sesame seeds next time, or make more of a point to press them into the dough. Most fell off. 

Comments

RobynNZ's picture
RobynNZ

Your crackers look beautifully thin, I'm sure they have a good 'crack' about them. Hope they are not too tempting before your trip.

 I came across a different method a day or two ago for making crackers. Realise your mix is different  but you just might find this method worth trying. Essentially a high hydration mix is poured onto a baking tray, spread very thinly, baked somewhat, removed from oven and then cut to desired size and back into the oven to dry out. I have yet to try this, but I do trust the source.

Cheers, Robyn

Catomi's picture
Catomi

Thanks for the link! The recipe looks interesting, especially the bake times. I wonder if, after cutting, the crackers should be put back in the oven on the cookie sheets, or directly on the oven rack. That could account for the 1 hour difference in bake time. That seems pretty significant. 

RobynNZ's picture
RobynNZ

Such a low oven temp 130°C/266°F. Not so much baking as drying. Suspect the time difference is a hydration thing, if you go to  the link in the next paragraph you'll see the recipe has passed through a few hands, perhaps like chinese whispers it has changed a bit, maybe flour in NZ needs less water to create pourable consistency than it did in Sweden......maybe humidity has an influence..... best we try and see what happens in our own kitchens. Please note what we call oven trays in NZ are flat, no rims; mine measure 45cm x 34cm, many newer ovens need smaller trays usually about 37cm  x 37cm.

I've remembered where I saw the recipe originally, on her blog, this provides a bit more background than the version I found through google.