5 Ingredients or Fewer

Erin French’s From-Scratch Saltines

by:
July 24, 2017
5
2 Ratings
Erin French’s From-Scratch Saltines
Photo by Bobbi Lin
  • Makes 36 crackers
Author Notes

Few homes in New England are without a box of saltines in the pantry. Whether you crumble them over chowder, dip them into shrimp salad, or mound them under scoops of just-melting vanilla ice cream—à la my grandmother—the effort to make these from scratch will pay big dividends.

Note: A pasta roller can double as an amazing device for consistently thin crackers. Consider the investment!

Reprinted with permission from The Lost Kitchen by Erin French (2017, Clarkson Potter).
—Food52

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling the dough
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 cup coconut oil
  • 1 1/4 cups whole milk
  • 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • Maldon salt
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Work in the coconut oil with a pastry blender until well incorporated. Stir in the milk and form the dough into a ball.
  2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to ¹⁄8 inch thick. Brush the dough with the butter, then cut it into 1½-inch squares. Transfer to the baking sheet, spacing the squares at least ½ inch apart. Sprinkle with Maldon salt. Bake until the edges begin to brown slightly, 12 to 15 minutes. Use a spatula to transfer the crackers to a wire rack and let cool. The crackers will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Tags:

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • Joelle Bradley
    Joelle Bradley
  • JJ
    JJ

Popular on Food52

2 Reviews

Joelle B.
Joelle B. November 3, 2019
What type of substitution might I do to make this vegan?
 
JJ
JJ November 5, 2017
I made these as directed. The only modification i couldn't resist was to add some salt into the dough itself as well. They came out as pictured. Didn't love the taste - too rich from the coconut oil but still blander than even a saltine should be. And not quite the lean flaky texture I want from a saltine - I am wondering if my measurements were a bit off on the coconut oil since i measured it solid. I am going to age the dough overnight and see if that helps.

If I were to make these again, I would probably use clarified butter or virgin coconut oil and add a lil sugar or something to see if that wouldn't add some flavor. But then of course they wouldn't have as versatile a flavor as storebought saltines.

That being said, these were baked up fast, easy and good lookin. I will probably be trying them again soon with modifications.