Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 324 kcal | 92 kcal |
| Protein | 7.5 g | 2.1 g |
| Fat | 10.7 g | 3 g |
| saturated | 1.3 g | 0.4 g |
| Carbohydrate | 38.6 g | 10.9 g |
| sugars | 21.3 g | 6 g |
| Fibre | 17.9 g | 5.1 g |
| Sodium | 783 mg | 222 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 1 7/8 cups chia seeds
- 7 1/2 cups water
- 910 g ripe banana (about 8 medium)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 1/4 tablespoons cinnamon
Instructions
- Use a banana with brown freckles on the skin. It is the only sweetener in this recipe, and an underripe one is starchy rather than sweet and gives you a cracker that tastes of very little.
- Blend the chia, water, banana, salt and cinnamon to a smooth puree and then leave it alone for twenty minutes. Chia has to gel before it is spread — the gel is the entire structure of this cracker, and there is no flour in it.
- Stir it once after the rest and check the texture. It should mound softly and spread without running; if it still pours, give it another ten minutes rather than adding more seed.
- Spread it on baking paper to 3 mm with a wet spatula, working from the centre out. Chia paste drags against a dry blade and pulls itself into ridges.
- Dry at 63 °C for 6 hours. The sheet is ready for the next stage when it is leathery all over and lifts off the baking paper in one piece rather than stretching.
- Peel it off carefully and cut it into crackers on the mesh. Cutting now rather than later means they break where you want them to; cut a brittle sheet and it shatters.
- Return them for another 6 hours to crisp, turning them once so the baking paper side gets air. That underside has been sealed against paper for the whole first stage and is always the damper face.
- They are done when a cooled cracker snaps rather than bending. Store them in an airtight tin for a fortnight — the banana leaves enough sugar in these that they soften quickly, and a soft batch can go back on the trays for an hour rather than being binned.
