Herbed Flatbread Crackers

Herbed Flatbread Crackers

Two days ago I decided to do a smorgasbord-type dinner and wanted to make some flatbread on which to put a white bean hummus. I found this recipe for "crisp rosemary flatbread" from Gourmet, which seemed interesting, but labor intensive. Following the advice of some of the reviews on the site, I decided to use my food processor to make the dough (which is how I make all my doughs, so I think I would have come to that conclusion on my own) and my pasta maker to roll out the dough thinly (that I probably wouldn't have thought of, so thanks, "A Cook from orange county, ca"!). The flatbread turned out closer to a cracker, really, but it was still very good and went nicely with both the hummus and some goat cheese. I made a few modifications and used thyme instead of rosemary, as that's what I had on hand. I imagine any fresh herb would work well here.

Recipe after the jump:

Herbed Flatbread Crackers

1 3/4 c. flour

scant 1 tbl. fresh thyme, chopped, plus a couple extra sprigs

1 heaping tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt.

1/2 c. water

1/3 c. olive oil, plus a little extra for pre-baking brushing

Kosher salt

Preheat oven to 425F and put a baking sheet on the center rack.

Note: The original recipe calls for a baking time of 8-10 min. at 450F. Here is what I got after 8 min. at 450:

Yikes! Poor blackened flatbread is a bit too crispy.

So I turned down the heat to 425 F, which seemed to do the trick.

Put flour, thyme, baking powder, and salt in bowl of food processor and pulse a few times to combine. With machine on, slowly add water and oil through the feed tube and process until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides. Dump the dough onto a counter (I lightly floured mine, but there's so much oil in this dough that there's no real danger of it sticking). Give the dough a few more shoves by hand to finish kneading. You should have a nice, smooth ball of dough.

At this point you could use a rolling pin to roll out a few thin rounds, but I used my pasta maker. This made about seven thin 6" wide strips instead. Work in batches, keeping unrolled dough covered with plastic wrap.

After rolling out 1 to 3 pieces of dough, arrange on parchment paper, brush with olive oil, shake kosher salt (or large grain sea salt) over top, and press small clumps of thyme into the dough.

Slide sheet of parchment paper onto baking sheet and cook for 8 min. at 425, or until golden and browned in places (it won't brown evenly).

Repeat, using different pieces of parchment, until all the dough is rolled and baked.

Break into pieces and eat or store. I can report that this flatbread is still good two days later after being stored in a tupperware container. Yum!