Daring Bakers - Raincoast Crisps, the DIY version

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Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!

Because I am only a official Daring Bakers member from March onwards, I found out about this challenge on the reveal date i.e. last Wednesday. Nevertheless, the different pictures that appeared on the Daring Kitchen website were so tantalising, that I couldn't resist giving these crackers a try. 

I hesitated between making the raincoast crips recipe on the Challenge Sheet (which in its turn was inspired by this post on the Dinner with Julie blog) and the awesome recipe for Nutty Biscuit Slices, Li from Words and Cake used for this challenge, but in the end I opted for the first one.  I'll probably make the Nutty Biscuit slices when we will have worked our way through my raincoast crisps stash :o)

Sliced up and ready for baking

I never heard of raincoast crisps before, but some googling learned that raincoast crisps is actually a brand name and that they are apparently well known on the other side of the big pond that is the Atlantic. I keep saying rainbow instead of raincoast and looking at the pre-baking stage, I think this would be an aptly name for these crisps as well. :o)

I stuck to the raincoast crisps recipe from the Challenge Sheet.  My only modification was that I halved all the ingredients, as I only have one loaf pan and the 8 dozen crisps yield of the original recipe seemed a bit too much.

Ingredients 

* 140g all-purpose (plain) flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 tsp salt
* 240ml buttermilk (°)
* 30g brown sugar, firmly packed
* 30ml honey
* 90g (golden) raisins
* 30g chopped pecans
* 65g roasted pumpkin seeds
* 15g sesame seeds
* 15g flax seed, ground
* 1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

(°) Being out of buttermilk, I substituted it for 250ml milk with 1 Tbsp of lemon juice

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add the raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, ground flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended.

Pour the batter into a 20cmx10cm loaf pan, greased and floured.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

The cooler the bread, the easier it is to slice really thin. You can leave it until the next day or pop it in the freezer. I left the bread to cool down overnight and then used an electric slicer to cut the loaf into 2mm slices.

Place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased bakingsheet. 

Reduce the oven heat to 150°C and bake them for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes, until crisp and deep golden. Be careful not to burn.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month.

These crisps are delicious and I will be making these again.

 


Dared to bake Raincoast Crisps. Challenge completed !