Wheat Thins

In part two of sweep the freezer while there is a blizzard outside, aka, what can I do with half a cup of wheat bran?, I came across these crackers in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I've made crackers before, but I tend to get lazy and not roll them out thin enough, so they come out sort of dense and they seem stale very quickly. These avoided that fate pretty well.

These aren't the wheat thins you think of when you pick up the Nabisco box at the grocery store. These are similarly nutty and sweet, with salt flecks on top and are perfect with my three favorite cracker toppings: cheddar cheese, hummus, and peanut butter spooned out of the jar and smeared on crackers while standing up because you can't wait until dinner but you want to. The cutting in of the butter is a little fussy for crackers, more in line with a homemade pie crust, but if you have a food processor, I would recommend, processing all of the dry ingredients, whizzing it again to cut in the butter, and then pulsing it while adding water until a dough is formed.

Wheat Thins

Adapted from Deborah Madison

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. wheat bran

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick (1/2 c.) butter

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine flour, bran, and salt. Cut the cold butter in to smaller pieces and add to the flour mixture, cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter, two butter knives, or your hands (or see above for food processor instructions) until it looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in 5 tablespoons of ice water until the dough clings together when combined (use your hands-- it will feel like a pie dough, a little tacky but not wet). Flour a surface, and your rolling pin, and roll out as thin as you can manage. Transfer to a cookie sheet. Prick the crackers all over with a fork, and sprinkle the surface of the crackers with salt. Cut the crackers with a pizza cutter in to any shape desired.

Bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes (though it took longer in my oven). Let cool briefly and serve. Store in an airtight container or freeze.