Cheezy Quackers/500 Vegan Recipes (or In My Case: Cheezy Yoda, Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, & Boba Fett)

Sometimes when I visit my nephews, or when they visit me, I try to come up with an easy baking project that we can do together.  We've made monkey pull-apart bread, bread in a bag, cookies, and cakes. Something that was a total hit was the Cheezy Quackers recipe from 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman. 

This recipe has only 6 ingredients, and you probably already have them all in your kitchen (if you're already vegan, that is, since one of the ingredients is nutritional yeast).  

My nephews had the coolest Star Wars cookie cutters.  I need to get my own set. Yes, need. 

For this next batch, rather than black pepper in the dough, I substituted with cayenne pepper.  After rolling out the dough, I then sprinkled freshly-ground mixed peppercorn all over the top, using a rolling pin to press the pepper into the dough. 

Instead of using cookie cutters this time, I used a rolling dough cutter (another fancy gadget I recommend that you get if you don't have one yet): 

rolling dough cutter ~ this was a souvenir I brought back from Italy to cut pasta!

I cut the dough into about 1"x1" squares.  I ended up with just over 100 crackers at this size. Considering that the dough gets a little puffy as it bakes, I took a fork to poke holes throughout the dough to hopefully prevent this a little (not that this is bad, but I was just experimenting).  

After 18-minutes of baking at 350-degrees, I took the crackers out of the oven.  I could probably get away with a couple more minutes to make them a little browner & crispier. The holes that I had poked into the rolled-out batter did prevent the puffiness.

ready enough to take out of the oven

crackers cooling on the rack

cheezy crackers & ringo the lurker

Here's the recipe, courtesy of Everyday Dish:



Cheezy Quackers

1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (40 g) nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 cup (56 g) nondairy butter
1/4 cup (60 ml) water or any nondairy milk

Combine flour, yeast, pepper, and salt. Cut butter on top and combine with a mixer, a fork, or your fingers, until it gets the appearance of a coarse meal. Add water or milk, 1 tablespoon (15 ml) at a time, and combine until dough forms.


You can choose to wrap the dough in plastic and place it in the fridge for later use, or roll it out immediately.
Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats, such as Silpat.


Roll out your dough between two pieces of parchment or Silpats, a little under 1/4 inch (6 mm). Cut out shapes using the smallest cookie cutters, about 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm). Repeat until you run out of dough, rolling it out again between batches.


Place crackers on prepared sheets. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, depending on thickness, until crackers are light golden brown on the bottom.


Place on a rack to cool down. These crackers freeze well, if you manage to keep them around long enough for that.

Yield: About 60 small crackers, depending on the size of the cookie cutter

Variations:
Add cayenne pepper, chili pepper flakes, or dried herbs of choice, to taste.


Choose different flours, such as a combination of spelt, chickpea, brown rice, or whole wheat, to get different textures and flavors.


Here's the video how-to, starring Celine Steen and her cute accent.