Mary's Rye Crisps

Here is another cracker/crisp recipe to contrast to Meg's cheese crackers.

From Mary's Kitchen 

I love Raincoast Crisps. My favorite includes cranberries and nuts. They have a satisfying crunch and pair well with any cheese. They are also good on their own or with smoked tuna dip - a local favorite. So, when I saw a recipe in the New York Times for raisin and pecan thins - where the photo looked for all the world like Raincoast Crisps - I was inspired.  With a little googling, I found another recipe at Kitchn that called for rye flour, a flavor I like in the Raincoast Crisps. 

My recipe blended aspects of both, more or less using the NYT recipe as a base as it makes half of the Kitchn recipe.  I used rye flour instead of wheat (like the Kitchn recipe), decreased the sugar and added more raisins.  Although both recipes called for buttermilk, I never have that in stock.  So I used a buttermilk substitute.  I think this could be a very pliable recipe, changing the flour, fruit and nuts to create a variety of flavors.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 

1/2 cup rye flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp crushed fennel seeds
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk, mixed with 1 Tbsp. lemon juice and left to sit for 10 min
1 cup pecans
1 cup golden raisins

Heat the oven to 350.  Butter 3 mini loaf pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, then butter the paper.

Whisk together the dry ingredients, stir in the milk mixture until all is smooth, then fold in the pecans and raisins. Divide among the 3 pans.  Back ~25-30 min or until a toothpick or tester comes out clean. Turn loaves out onto a rack and let cool completely.  Freeze the loaves for ~ 1 hr.

Heat the oven to 300. Slice one frozen loaf at a time with a sharp serrated bread knife, making ~1/8" slices. Bake slices on parchment-lined baking sheets.  I used convection mode and the biscotti approach - baking 14 min, turning then baking another 9 min - to make a very crunchy finished product.  Cool completely (if you can wait).  This recipe makes 7-8 dozen crisps.

Meg - this sounds very yummy. I bet that you could substitute other nuts and dried fruits such as hazelnuts and cranberries.