Quinoa Crackers

These crackers came about as a result of lots of left-over quinoa from our previous night’s meal and I was wondering what I could do to use up at least some. Miss MaMT suggested crackers, so after a quick google search, this recipe came up – using cooked quinoa – yay!

So … I set about tweaking and thermifying it … the result: deliciously moreish little crackers! Indeed, Mr MaMT groans when I serve up quinoa, but absolutely LOVES these crackers and vows that it’s the only way he’ll eat it from henceforth. Doesn’t he realise that I’ll just put it in a soup otherwise? 😉

Okay, here’s the recipe:

First add to a small glass bowl:

1.5 tsp chia seeds + 1tbs (20ml) hot water – leave to ‘gel’ whilst you grind and mix …

NB: if you don’t have chia seeds, omit this step and add 1.5 tsp xanthan gum with the dry ingredients – see further down

Grind speed 9 / 1 minute:

60g brown rice (you can use raw quinoa instead, heated on varoma / speed 1 for 10 minutes*, if you wish, but I’m not too keen on the strong taste it imparts).

*heating or soaking gets rid of the bitter tasting saponin coating on the quinoa

Add and blitz on Speed 9 / 5 seconds:

50g linseeds or sunflower seeds
50g sesame seeds

Add and blend speed 6 / 10 seconds:

100g COOKED quinoa
70g quinoa flakes (or buckwheat or rice flakes)
90g potato starch or cornflour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt

NB: also add 1.5 tsp xanthan gum, if not using chia seeds.

Add and blend: speed 5 / about 10 seconds to form a ball:

25g chia gel (omit if using xanthan in previous step)
60g olive oil
60g softened butter or coconut oil (this is optional – I leave out)
3 tbs 20ml cold water (or 4 tbs 15ml)

Preheat the oven to 200°C or 190°C fan forced.
Turn out the dough onto the bench and mould into a ball. Divide into two and roll out the first one between two pieces of baking paper the size of two baking trays/sheets, until nice and thin. Gently peel the top piece of baking paper away and score the dough. I use a rectangular cutter to score uniform cracker shapes, with a few raggedy-edged ones. Do whatever suits you! Slide the cracker dough on the baking paper onto one of your baking sheets/trays.

Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Bake both trays of crackers for 20mins or until slightly golden. At the end of cooking, you may like to gently break away the crackers on the outer edges, setting aside in a tin to cool, leaving the middle section of crackers to bake a little longer and harden in the oven, after you’ve turned it off.