Daring Bakers Challenge, April 2009: Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

If my camera was working you would be able to actually SEE this infamous cheesecake, but The Little One got hold of it and the lens is stuck in the partway open/partway closed position and it won't budge so there are no photos, AND I get to try and find someone local to fix it. (sigh) That being the case, you'll have to rely on my riveting narrative and incredibly descriptive descriptions to help you visualize this masterpiece.

I do love cheesecake. My grandmother passed along a recipe for Fire Island Cheesecake from the NY Times from back in the 50's and it's my go-to recipe. It was with some trepidation that I made Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake, because you don't mess with my grandmother. She's 93 and healthy as a horse - her short term (and increasingly her medium term) memory is shot because of Alzheimer's but she's a feisty one, that one is. She almost got into fisticuffs with her roommate at the nursing home over a sweater, so now she has a private room. (Yes, she's THAT little old lady) But enough about her for now... let's move on to the recipe, shall we?

I have a set of 3 springform pans - 8", 9" and 10" as well as 4 wee little pans that measure about 3" to 4" across. I debated using those, but since I just used them for February's challenge, I decided to go full size and pawn off the results to school, as sadly there is no cheesecake to be eaten in this house for some time to come. With the victims lucky recipients in mind, I set to work.

I decided to do a Kahlua flavor cheese cake: coffee liqueur in the batter and a little instant coffee mixed in with the graham cracker crumbs. I used about 2 tablespoons of the instant since I didn't want to overwhelm the flavor, but I was also hoping that it wouldn't be underwhelming either. I'm a bottom and little bit of the sides crust girl, so I extended it up about a 1/2 to 3/4 inch past the bottom. The batter came together flawlessly. Sooooo finger-licking good.

Grandma's recipe doesn't call for a waterbath, so I waffled: yes, no, yes, no, nes, yo. Do I have a pan big enough to hold both the water and the pan itself? Will my pan leak? It's not the way grandma did it.... In the end I decided to follow the directions (don't faint, it's not THAT unheard of for me) and did the waterbath but made sure that I wrapped the bottom tightly in foil - I had a blowout in that pan once with something too liquidy leaking out, so I assumed that the reverse would be true as well. Cooking was uneventful and I felt comforted knowing that both recipes have the cheesecake chilling out in the oven for an hour after the formal cooking process was over.

It was beautiful! All waxy looking on top, hiding that luscious interior, giving me that seductive "come hither" look.... I resisted temptation and took it away the next day to class. The kids were in CRCT testing (which I won't describe here but it's REALLY high pressure for both teachers and students) and they needed a small respite. My offering up to the testing gods was well received. The teachers were in Heaven over it and they went on and on about how wonderful it was. Ok, with feedback like that.... I had to taste a small piece. It WAS good - it was very creamy and stuck to the fork just like it's supposed to and it had a nice subtle coffee flavor. High marks all around.

Thanks to Jenny for selecting this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge. You can find the complete recipe on her site. To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.

Daring Baker's Challenge for January 2009 - Fortune Cookies! (aka: Tuiles) with Bonus Video

The red cutout is by No Thank You Boy. It's the Chinese symbol for spring (or so he's told) and they did it in school.

This month's Daring Baker's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

The Challenge was not a recipe per se, but more of a technique used to make tuiles. "Traditionally, tuiles are thin, crisp almond cookies that are gently molded over a rolling pin or arched form while they are still warm. Once set, their shape resembles the curved French roofing tiles for which they're named."

Okaaaaaay. So, I went a-searching for what the heck to make since the butterfly example and the use of a template didn't really float my boat, when I realized... EGAD! These are fortune cookies! AND Chinese New Year was Monday, January 26! Happy Year of the Ox! (So tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999 4707).

You so know I would have inserted a link to an appropriate music video here, but His Royal Purple Badness has threatened to sue YouTube if they put any up, and goodness knows we don't want to get Himself's knickers in a twist, not that he probably wears any. But again, as usual, I digress.

Here's the "how-to" on the fortune cookies. Recipe and tweaks to follow.

Part I : Baking Prep

Part II : Cookie Formation

My modified fortune cookie/tuiles recipe is below or you can find the original one at Bake My Day here. Additional equipment needed to make fortune cookies: muffin tins, cotton gloves, coffee mug, spatula and fortunes printed on little paper slips. You can see how I used the equipment in the above video. For fortune cookies, the batter is best if it's a little runny, but I did chill it for about an hour (30 minutes is fine, I just got busy doing other stuff) to let the flour integrate and then pulled it out of the fridge and let it re-soften for about 30 minutes. You need the thin cotton gloves to safely handle the hot cookies without burning your fingers and the mufin tin is so that they hold their shape; they will unbend if you don't put them in there. Store in an air tight container.

Confucious say:

Try make cookies. Much fun and you can do with ease.
Man who run in front of car get tired.
Man who run behind car get exhausted.
Man with one chopstick go hungry.

Celebration of Lisa's 100th post with giveaway coming soon.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
(Confucious really say this last one)

yes, I did wrap the tripod (Joby's Gorillapod) around the cabinet frame to shoot the video :D

Thanks to Karen and Zorra for selecting this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge. You can find the complete recipe on their sites.

To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.

Fortune Cookies

Following is a recipe adapted from a book called “The Chocolate Book”, written by female Dutch Master chef Angélique Schmeinck.

Preparation time: batter 10 minutes, waiting time: 60 minutes, baking time:10-12 minutes per batch. I made a double batch and got about 28 cookies.

Ingredients:

¼ cup softened butter (not melted but soft)

½ cup sifted confectioner’s sugar

1 dash of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)

½ cup sifted all purpose flour

Butter/spray to grease baking sheet or use silicone baking mat or parchment paper

Unique Equipment:

muffin tin(s)

thin cotton gloves

spatula

coffee mug

fortunes printed on slips of paper

tablespoon measuring spoon

Using a handheld mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed), mix/cream butter, sugar and vanilla and almond extract to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour to allow the flour to incorporate. Take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a tablespoon measure, spoon out tablespoonfuls of the batter onto the baking sheet. I did 6 at a time. Swirl the batter into a fairly uniform circle about 3 ½ inches in diameter. Don’t worry if the batter seems a little see-through in places; it will even out in the oven. Bake for about 10 – 12 minutes, checking at the 9 or 10 minute mark. You want to see that the edges are turning golden brown.

Before you're ready to pull them out, have your cotton gloves, muffin tins, fortunes, mug and spatula at the ready. Pull the pan out of the oven. Working quickly, use the spatula to lift one of the circles off the sheet and lay it in your gloved hand. Take a slip of fortune paper and lay it on one half of the circle. Fold the cookie in half, gently holding the outside edges. Move to the coffee mug and bend it in half over the edge. Voila! Fortune cookie!

Place the newly bent cookie in the muffin tin so that it will hold its shape and not unbend. You may have to put some of the remaining cookies back into the over for a few minutes to re-soften so that they bend nicely.

Daring Baker's December Challenge: French Yule Log (in 6 Part Harmony)

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.

They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

6 elements, 8 layers, 19 pages of instructions, 2 caramel burns, 3 days, 2 helpers, 1 exhausted Daring Baker. This one was a doozy! I merely read the instructions started hyperventilating. My palms got sweaty and I got all confused and in a complete tither. Of course, since everything else in December gets me confused and in a complete tither, I did the whole ostrich deal and waited until Thursday to start on this creation. Some people were doing an actual “log-ish” type thing. I pounced on two teeny weenie little words literally on the very last page of the 19 pages of directions. At the very bottom of the very last page I saw: “springform pan”. Can you say life preserver?

The whole log concept and inverted vs. right side up assembly vs. upside down assembly vs. dacquoise on the top or bottom or both, version A or version B, etc., was making my brain vibrate and eyes cross. (breathe, breathe, breathe). X'ing out all the variations I wasn't using with a big fat sharpie helped me get my brain wrapped around this. I took the straightforward approach and did mine in a 9” springform pan, right side up with one layer of the dacquoise biscuit on the bottom. I chose hazelnut as the overall theme for the cake (sorry I refuse to say that we worked like fools for 3 days on a LOG) and Hazelnut is the flavor du jour. My mom and sister were here and they helped with the execution. More on that later.

The 6 prescribed elements are:
1. Dacquoise biscuit
2. Dark chocolate mousse
3. Dark Chocolate Ganache Insert
4. Praline Feuillete (Crisp) Insert
5. Vanilla Crème Brulèe Insert
6. And finally, Dark Chocolate Icing

The order in which I made these components did not follow the order above.

I did mine as follows:
1. Vanilla Crème Brulèe Insert
2. Dacquoise biscuit
3. Praline Feuillete (Crisp) Insert
4. Dark Chocolate Ganache Insert
5. Dark chocolate mousse
6. And finally, Dark Chocolate Icing

1. Vanilla Crème Brulèe Insert
My sister and her husband went on a recent cruise to French Polynesia including Tahiti and Bora Bora (yeah, it does sound like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but they did go and had a grand time, I might add) and brought back with them (among many other wonderful things) a kilo of vanilla beans. Yes, you read that right – one kilo of Tahitian vanilla beans. Guess what I got for Christmas? :D I got a nice bottle full of beans and some homemade vanilla extract. Yum yum. I scraped down one of those precious lovely little beans and parked it in the cream to infuse a while. While that was soaking I started on the...

2. Dacquoise biscuit
DH went to Whole Foods during lunch one day and faithfully picked me up some whole hazelnuts (filberts to some) and had the spice/nut guy grind up a container into hazelnut meal for my recipe. This was fairly straightforward. There was no piping into pretty little spirals like some of the directive pictures suggested – I smushed it down on the silpat and into the oven it went. Pulled it out to cool and cut to size. Easy peasy, unlike the.....

3. Praline Feuillete (Crisp) Insert
Can you say caramel? Again? Incredibly inconceivable as this might sound I could not find store-bought praline anywhere down here. And this is the South, mind you! Land of Nathalie Dupree and Paula Deen! I think it’s a conspiracy. I smashed up some of the whole hazelnuts with a rolling pin, and I had some caramel sauce left over from November’s caramel cake and used that. Twice. The first batch scorched while I was reheating it. Being the frugal girl I am, I asked my DS and DM to rinse all the sugar out and salvage the nuts for round 2. Round 2 was better and I pulled it off in the blonde stage and before it became an amber brunette. I used les Krispies des Rice in lieu of la gavottes/lace crepes for the “crisp” part of the program. I sprayed 2 plastic spoons with Pam spray and tossed the rice krispies with the hazelnuts and sugar mixture. I then plopped it on some waxed paper, put another layer on top and flattened it out to make my circle. Into the fridge and later cut it to size. Then we jumped...

4. Back on the Crème Brulee wagon.
I thought I’d be clever and use the springform pan to cook the brulee, but that quickly changed when it sprang a leak and started flooding out of the bottom. Quickly flipping through my brain for ideas – EUREKA! The silpat circular baking pan I have – the kitchen gods were smiling on me (at that point) as the diameter was the same as the springform pan. Yay! DS helped me pour it all in and we popped in the oven without a hitch. I froze it after it cooked and it popped out of the silpat like a frisbee and nestled down so neatly into the springform pan. Little did I know that the kitchen gods are fickle and can turn on you (and your mother) in an instant. This was made abundantly clear in the next step, the...

5. Dark Chocolate Ganache Insert.
“Step 1: Make a caramel”. Ok, we made another caramel, we burned another caramel and we burned our fingers on the molten lava sugar. (Gee, I wonder if it tastes as burnt as it smells? Let's have a sample...doh!) Blisters for both me and my mom – that crap is HOT. Just as bad as hot glue (insert Voice of Experience here). It hits your finger, burns the heck out of it then instantly cools ever so slightly, so that it turns from liquid to solid and it’s stuck on your damn finger, continuing to broil the flesh underneath it and you can’t get it off. More of my good friend Silvadene cream, followed by a miracle product my DS brought me – Melagel, made from teatree/melaleuca plant. Amazing. No scars, not blisters and not sensitive to heat or touch the next day. A must for every kitchen and home. But I digress. Screw the “make a caramel” part. Kraft made the caramel, we stirred the chocolate into it. I smeared it onto the dacquoise layer with a spatula. Little did we know that the next step held yet more challenges like the...

6. Dark chocolate mousse.
This includes a Pate a Bombe which is a term used for “egg yolks beaten with a SUGAR SYRUP, then aerated.” Helloooooo! CARAMEL IS A SUGAR SYRUP! and this has the word BOMB in the title! I’ll spare you the details, but this layer turned out slightly chunky, as the SUGAR SYRUP BOMB turned into chunks of hardened caramel/sugar and no amount of whipping, beating, magic bulletting or smashing would break them up. So, slightly chunky it is. I refrigerated the mousse per somewhere I read, but wound up having to microwave it to make it workable again. No piping here but more smearing with a spatula and fingers.

At this point, all the layers are cut and assembled in the following order:
Dacquoise
Ganache insert
mousse
praline/crisp insert
mousse
creme brulee insert
mousse

and the whole shebang went into the deep freeze for the night. Today I unmolded the cake and it was this nice, sturdy wheel thingy. Very nice. Then I started on the last (TYG!) step, the...

7. Dark Chocolate Icing.
I mixed the gelatin with water and let it rest for 15 minutes. I came back and pouf! She is gone. “Ah, honey, where’s the little bowl that had goopy stuff in it that was on the counter? In the dishwasher – it was empty wasn’t it?” I hope to heaven that it dissolves completely in there. Made it again and babysat this time. This was easy peasy as well, but it took a long time to cool. I finally got impatient and dumped it on the cake. I had to pick it up and roll the sides around in the pan to coat them. Thank goodness it was frozen solid.

Back into the chiller for about a half hour and then into the fridge. The 1/2 hour maximum defrost is a huge underestimation. It was in there for the entire run time of the movie Wall-E (98 minutes, FYI) and it still was frozen solid. I carved it up regardless to take my photos and tried a bite. Frozen = eh, it’s just ok. I've left the slice out on the counter during the time I'm typing this (also about 97 minutes and counting) and ran in there just now to re-try it = mmmmmm much better and the threatened apocalyptic catastrophe of melty, runny stuff is nowhere to be seen. Nothing has pooled or gotten all gloppy– it’s room temperature, tasty and all the layers are still intact. (Note: still in one piece after 3 hours and tastes even better.)
NOW I can taste the hazelnuts and the chocolate. Veni, vidi, vici, venti.
(I came, I saw, I conquered, I got the t-shirt and a latte.)

Thanks to Hilda and Marion for selecting this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge. You can find the complete recipe (all 19 pages :D) on their sites.

To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.

Daring Baker's November Challenge: Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting!

This month's Challenge was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting, recipe courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon, as published on Bay Area Bites. We had to make both the cake and the frosting.

This month’s Challenge hosts are Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex aka: Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo and Jenny of Foray into Food. Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go is assisting with alternative baking methods.



In the spirit of Thanksgiving, THANK HEAVENS for David Lebovitz. The man is brilliant. He suggested using a strainer over your caramel pan to stop the spatters and preventing the equivalent of Culinary Napalm (perfect description from Alton Brown) from splattering me and my kitchen.

This was actually fairly easy. I was quite worried about burning myself, but that didn’t happen, and I followed Shuna’s directions for the caramel challenged to a “T” and it all came together beautifully. I was afraid of my regular cake pans not being “tall” enough, so I used my 9” springform pan – fabulous! It pulled away from the edges just like it was supposed to and it turned golden brown and delicious.

Thanks to Dolores, Alex and Jenny for selecting this month’s Daring Baker Challenge. You can find the complete recipe for the caramel cake, frosting and optional caramels (which I did not make) on their sites.To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.

Daring Baker's October Challenge: Pizza Dough!

This month's Challenge was “Pizza Napoletana” from Peter Reinhart's “The Bread Baker's Apprentice”. You had to film or photograph your tossing attempt and you needed to use both a “sauce” (or something otherwise spreadable) and “toppings”.

I would NEVER have made this without the DBers, much less video taped myself doing it! Please excuse my disaster of a kitchen and remember that the camera makes you look at least 10 20 pounds heavier than you actually are.



What a riot!

My variations were

Pizza 1: Apple with Caramelized Onion, Walnuts and Cheddar on a dough primed with Basil Flavored Olive Oil. (In hindsight, I should have sauteed/swished the onions in balsamic vinegar before putting them on the pizza. One bite without and I knew something was missing. I spritzed it on afterwards and it made it so much better.).

Pizza 2: Blue Cheese with Toasted Pine Nuts and Caramelized Onions on a spread of Mashed Roasted Garlic. Oh my. Sooooo good!

Cook’s Notes:
-I made the “regular” dough, aka: not the gluten-free one
-I used my stand mixer to combine the ingredients and knead the dough.
-I froze 4 of the 6 balls of dough for a later date
-I used an offset spatula to get the pizza off the cookie sheet and onto the pizza stone and then again to shimmy it off the stone and onto the cutting board
-I will use flour next time as the ballbearing / dough movement vehicle – no question. I forgot how I don’t really care for the gritty feeling of the cornmeal.

These pizzas were so wonderfully good - I can't wait to make good use of the stash of dough in my freezer and maybe get the kids into the act!

Thanks to Rosa from Rosa's Yummy Yums for selecting this month’s Daring Baker Challenge. You can find the complete recipe for the pizza dough on her site.

To see what all the other DBer’s did, you can find the blogroll here and if you’d like to join the monthly party, info about that can be found on that page as well.

Daring Bakers, September 2008: Lavash Crackers

I am now a Daring Baker and this is my first project!

September 2008: The Challenge: Make vegan and/or gluten free Lavash Crackers and create a dip/spread/salsa/relish to accompany it. As chosen by Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shelly, of Musings From the Fishbowl, chose Lavash Crackers from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread.

I was a little intimidated by this concept, but that’s the point of Daring Bakers – challenging yourself to do that which has not been attempted before. I assembled all my ingredients and started in. I had read a question from another DB newbie about using her brand new KitchenAid stand mixer to make the dough. Hmmm, if I did that I would miss out on all the kneading action and I wouldn’t be stretching myself and trying new things. Be Daring! I did think however that it that might be interesting to compare the differences between machine kneaded dough and hand kneaded dough, so I did it both ways as an experiment (and you know how I love experiments!)

The first batch of dough I did in the mixer and it was ok. I didn’t think that it got kneaded enough, and when I baked up these batches, I had a lot of air bubbles come thru. As for the “by hand” dough, 10 minutes of kneading was way not enough. 15 minutes was not enough. Turns out 20 minutes worked for me. It’s rather relaxing once you get over watching the clock and I could feel it change texture and morph into something entirely different than when I began.

Since I had plenty of dough I made 4 different types of crackers. For each one I rolled over the toppings with the rolling pin to imbed them into the dough so they wouldn’t flake off.

Rosemary, basil and sea salt.

Hungarian paprika, poppy seed, ground mustard and sea salt,

Plain sea salt (not pictured as it's kind of boring looking)

And a sweet variation: cinnamon sugar (gotta have my magic sprinkles!), slivered almonds and coconut.

I tried using cookie cutters, but the first 3 shrank up so badly, I ceased and desisted. Interesting how those puffed up like little pillows!

Now for the dip. Fun fun fun! I roasted about 6 heads of garlic the other night (which I'll post soon!), knowing I wanted to do something garlicky with the dip. Again, it had to be vegan and/or gluten free. I had a number of homegrown tomatoes gifted to me that needed to be used up before they got funky so I combined the two in my Magic Bullet (love that thing) and pulsed slightly until I got a nice chunky salsa-eque dip. Chiffonade of basil leaves and ooooooooh so yummy. I am quite anti-oxidated right now.

Many thanks to Natalie and Shelly for choosing this gluten free and vegan recipe. To see what all the other DBers did with their Lavash, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making either one of these recipes for yourself, you can find the recipe in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread. or see below.

Lavash Crackers

Recipe Reference: The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. Copyright 2001. ISBN-10: 1-58008-268-8, ISBN-13: 978-158008-268-6.

Here's a simple formula for making snappy Armenian-style crackers, perfect for breadbaskets, company and kids...It is similar to the many other Middle Eastern and Northern African flatbreads known by different names, such as mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), khoubiz or khobz (Arabian), aiysh (Egyptian), kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish), and pideh (Armenian). The main difference between these breads is either how thick or thin the dough is rolled out, or the type of oven in which they are baked (or on which they are baked, as many of these breads are cooked on stones or red-hot pans with a convex surface)...The key to a crisp lavash,...is to roll out the dough paper-thin. The sheet can be cut into crackers in advance or snapped into shards after baking. The shards make a nice presentation when arranged in baskets.

Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers

* 1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) unbleached bread flour or gluten free flour blend (If you use a blend without xanthan gum, add 1 tsp xanthan or guar gum to the recipe)
* 1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt
* 1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast
* 1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar ( I used sugar, and would have used honey if not vegan)
* 1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil
* 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature
* Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

2. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should pass the windowpane test (see http://www.wikihow.com/Determine-if-Bre … ong-Enough for a discription of this) and register 77 degrees to 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), satiny to the touch, not tacky, and supple enough to stretch when pulled. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

or

2. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), and slightly tacky. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

4. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down. Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Line a sheet pan with baking parchment. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment. If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors.

or

4. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Lay out two sheets of parchment paper. Divide the cracker dough in half and then sandwich the dough between the two sheets of parchment. Roll out the dough until it is a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. Slowly peel away the top layer of parchment paper. Then set the bottom layer of parchment paper with the cracker dough on it onto a baking sheet.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.) Be careful with spices and salt - a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.

6. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

7. When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.