Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 597 kcal | 169 kcal |
| Protein | 14.6 g | 4.1 g |
| Fat | 54.4 g | 15.4 g |
| saturated | 4.2 g | 1.2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 10 g | 2.8 g |
| sugars | 6.4 g | 1.8 g |
| Fibre | 12.6 g | 3.6 g |
| Sodium | 291 mg | 83 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
- 3 1/4 cups chia seeds
- 6 1/2 cups water
- 1.9 kg hazelnuts, soaked overnight, skins removed
- 5/8 cup lemon zest
- 6 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 3 1/4 teaspoons sea salt
- Black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Stir the chia seeds into the cup of water and leave them until the whole bowl is a firm gel. Chia that has not fully hydrated pulls water back out of the dough later and leaves soft patches in the cracker.
- Drain the soaked hazelnuts and rub the skins off between your palms. Hazelnut skin is bitter and never softens, so any skin left on turns up as a bitter fleck.
- Grind the nuts fine but stop before they go oily. Hazelnuts are among the fattest nuts on the site and the gap between meal and butter is a couple of seconds wide.
- Combine the ground nuts with the chia gel, lemon zest, maple syrup, salt and pepper and work it to one colour. Streaks of gel dry clear and glassy against the opaque nut around them.
- Spread the dough on lined trays to 6 mm with an offset spatula, then score it into squares before it goes in. Scoring set dough shatters it, and scoring a finished cracker is impossible.
- Start at 63 °C and give it 1 hour. The opening burst is hotter than the rest on purpose: while the dough is still wet it evaporates fast enough to stay cool inside, and the heat buys you time against fermentation.
- Drop the setting to 46 °C and carry on for 8 hours, turning the slab onto mesh once it is firm enough to move. The face that sat against the liner has had no air at all until then.
- They are done when a cracker breaks in half cleanly with no bend in it. Cool one first, because a cracker carrying this much nut oil always feels crisper warm than it will cold.
- Keep them in an airtight tin in the cupboard for three weeks, or in the freezer for three months. Hazelnut oil is what fails first, and a cracker gone soft can be crisped again where a rancid one cannot be rescued.
