Sunday, February 16, 2014

Sour Cream And Chive Crackers (Egg-Free) LOW CARB

ORIGINAL RECIPE FOUND HERE



Chives and Sour Cream Crackers; Pile of Crackers, Cream Cheese in the Background | Low-Carb, So Simple!
These melt-in-your-mouth crackers are a healthy alternative for sour cream and onion potato chips. These amazingly simple crackers are tasty and crunchy — perfect as such, or with various toppings.



Sour Cream and Chive Crackers (Egg-Free)
2 cups = 480 ml = 230 g almond flour
small bunch ≈ 0.7 oz ≈ 20 g fresh organic chives
2.5 oz = 70 g sour cream
1 teaspoon (or to taste) unrefined sea salt
(1/2 teaspoon organic garlic powder)

Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 250 °F or slightly lower (100 °C).
  2. Chop the chives into small pieces.
  3. In a medium bowl, mix all the ingredients by hand. Knead for a half a minute or until smooth.
  4. Place the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place another parchment paper on the dough. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough between the two parchment papers as thin as you can.
  5. Remove the topmost parchment paper.
  6. Cut the dough with a knife or pizza cutter into squares.
  7. Put in the oven and bake for 50–60 minutes. Check frequently so that the crackers don’t get too dark or burn.
  8. Cool completely and break into squares.


Nutrition informationProteinFatNet carbskcal
The whole batch:57.9 g136.9 g18.9 g1539 kcal
Per cracker if 40 crackers in a batch:1.4 g3.4 g0.5 g38 kcal
Per cracker if 60 crackers in a batch:1.0 g2.3 g0.3 g26 kcal
Per cracker if 80 crackers in a batch:0.7 g1.7 g0.2 g19 kcal


Chives and Sour Cream Crackers; Crackers, Chives and Sour Cream | Low-Carb, So Simple!


Tips for making the crackers

These are very simple and easy crackers to make. Chilling the dough and baking takes the longest time.
For rolling the dough, I have developed a technique where I hold the rolling pin from the middle rather than from the ends. I press the rolling pin on the dough and roll it constantly pressing it firmly against the dough. From my experience this is the easiest and the fastest technique to roll this firm dough.
Chives and Sour Cream Crackers, Piles with Cream Cheese Filling | Low-Carb, So Simple!


My experiments with the crackers

In my first experiments I added one egg to the dough. The needed amount of almond flour was quite much in order to keep the dough firm enough. I used 2 1/2 cups (600 ml) almond flour, but the amount of dough was a bit too much so that it would have fit on one baking sheet.
I wanted to reduce the amount of almond flour so that the dough would fit on one baking sheet. But, if I reduce almond flour, I have to reduce wet ingredients as well, otherwise the dough won’t be firm enough. Since you really cannot reduce anything from an egg (well, you could separate the egg and use either the yolk or the white), and reducing the amount of sour cream didn’t come into question because I wanted to have enough sour cream flavor, I decided to try what happens if I simply omit the egg. That was worth trying, the result was crunchy and the crackers melted in the mouth!
With egg the crackers were crunchy, but the texture was a bit, um, leathery or so. It’s difficult to describe, but at least they weren’t melt-in-your-mouth crackers.
I wanted to do some more experiments with the amount of sour cream. I used 2 cups (480 ml) almond flour and tried with 2.5 oz (70 g), 3 oz (85 g) and 4 oz (115 g) sour cream. The first brought the crunchiest results.
The first batch I baked at 300 °F (150 ° C) for a half an hour. The edges got darkish and the center wasn’t crunchy. Then I tried to dry the crackers so that I heated the oven to 350 °F (200 ° C), put the baking sheet in the oven and turned off the heat. Quite okay, but it took some 5 hours before the crackers were ready and crunchy. In the end I found that 250 °F  or slightly lower temperature (100 ° C) brings the best results.

Chives and Sour Cream Crackers; Ready for Halloween | Low-Carb, So Simple!


Tips for variation

These crackers are very easy to vary. Choose your favorites from the cornucopia of herbs and spices. Fresh or dried, mild or spicy, exotic or plain, everything suits.
I made one batch of garlic bread crackers where I substituted 1 tablespoon garlic bread seasoning for chives. The crackers were really yummy!

Chives and Sour Cream Crackers; Ready for Halloween 2 | Low-Carb, So Simple!

After baking so huge amount of crackers, I developed also some spreads and dips to go with them. Stay tuned for my spine-chilling, hair-raising Halloween spread recipe which I’m going to publish next week!

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Update October 23rd, 2012: Removed chilling phase from the directions. I tried this recipe twice without chilling the dough, and it worked extremely well! Actually the dough was easier to roll when it wasn’t that hard. And the result: delicious thin, crunchy, melt-in-your-mouth crackers :)

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