Avocado Rye Crackers work in progress
Not being in the Avocado capital of the world but swimming in avocados, I decided to try an experiment using only avos (avocados) for my liquid. Started with the basics and going from there. I happened upon some watery thin skinned fruit that I am told are known as "Florida avocados" and thought at first interesting but then reality set in, sure enough... less fat, more carbs and more water. Hmmm not exactly what I value in an avo but good enough for a cracker experiment and maybe a bread.
Peeled the avo and diced it into a bowl on the scales. Added equal weight of rye for a reference point and began to squish it all together. Went much faster than I thought, and they weren't even mushy avos! Let that sit for a while to soak and soften lumps wondering about the dough turning brown, should I add lemon or sourdough? Does one even add leavening to crackers? Nibbling on the dough, well, it needed something. 2% salt would be about 4.4g on my 220g flour and I had black olives calling out from the fridge. Half dried chili peppers would be colorful (threads?) and crushed garlic would also be good, black pepper? Bread spice? Cumin? Curry? Petunias? Had to start somewhere. What makes them puffy? Resting time and hot baking the water in the dough.
First Run:
220g Florida Avocado (the watery kind)
220g medium rye flour
2 garlic cloves
10 black olives (cut from pits, salty)
1 chili pepper (mine was thumb size and medium spiced)
flour/raw seeds for rolling
oil for 3 sheets of parchment (1 tsp each sheet, flavoured or not)
salt
Remove seed and skin from avocado and cut into pieces, weigh. Add equal weight rye flour. Pinch and mix with hands until it becomes a firm dough and lumps of avocado are well blended into the dough. Autolyse or allow to rest covered for 30 minutes. Then arrange on a nice plate photographic piles of pressed garlic, finely chopped olives and a rounded tablespoon more or less finely chopped fresh chili pepper. Add to dough, forget to make a photo, check moisture, it should be a bit sticky now but still firm enough to roll out, yet soft enough to do so easily. Rest another 30 minutes.
Divide dough in half, shape into a rectangle hamberger shape and roll into a mixture of flour and sesame seeds to coat, this helps with the rolling out of dough. Wrap up one to prevent drying. Roll out dough as thin as possible between two layers of lightly oiled parchment paper. Anything squishing out can be cut off and stuck back on in a needy spot under the parchment. Carefully peel back top sheet of parchment. Sprinkle with seeds/salt. Score if desired to facilitate breaking and transfer to baking sheet.
Bake middle of oven at 200°C or 400°F until medium brown, rotate to avoid burning back corners. Allow to cool on rack. Break apart.
Flavour tweaking needed. I found it smelled and sort of tasted like teriyaki beef jerky, a little bitter (I did get it brown) without any sweetness. I chrunched on half a sheet of the stuff trying to decide my next step. Maybe brushing the rolled out cracker with honey water or using some sourdough or aging of the dough 24 hrs to bring out sweetness. Lots of different directions to try. Tempted to turn down heat a little bit to help dry while baking.
This is an open experiment, all comments and jumping in to experiment and post more than welcome!