Cracked Black Pepper Oatmeal Crackers

This recipe is inspired, as a lot of mine are, by Heidi at 101cookbooks.com. I altered some of the ingredients and played with the flour a bit to get this lovely creation. The pepper is perfect and mixed with the touch of sugar, the sweet and the savoury, the topping possibilities are endless. Personally, I loved them with some leftover Christmas cranberry chutney but I think a hearty mature cheddar would be just as perfect.

Homemade crackers are tricky, especially with our little Beko-POS-oven. The most difficult part is rolling the dough out thinly enough to get a crispy cracker, rather than a cakey biscuit. It took a lot of flour and a lot of elbow grease but I think mine came out right.

Either way, I did something right. I brought a batch to work and they were gone by lunch! Normally I have cakes sitting out on my desk all day and have to either bring the remaining home, or force them on people but not today. I'll have to bring in the rest tomorrow.

I think the rye flour is key here. It adds the savoury to the sweet of the oats and mixes well with the pepper. I used a mix of spelt flour and buckwheat instead of wholemeal but when I rolled the dough out, I floured the surface with wholemeal. Go with what you have in the cupboard. Plain would work just as well.

1 cup oats

360ml milk, heated to boiling

55g softened butter

4tbsp demerara sugar

3 tsp baking powder

2 tsp crushed black peppercorns

1/2 tsp sea salt

155g rye flour

190g wholemeal flour
salt to sprinkle

Mix oats with boiling milk. Let cool (you can put it in the freezer if you're short on time)

Stir in all wholemeal flour when the oats have cooled. Mix together well. Add wholemeal flour until a dough forms (you may need more or less than what's called for).

Pour the dough out onto a floured surface. Knead until the dough is uniform.

Preheat the oven to 425F/245C/gas 8-9. Roll out the dough as thinly as you can. Cut into shapes of your choice. Sprinkle with salt Big flaky salt is better but go with what you have.

Bake about 9 minutes or until the bottom is just golden. Turn over and bake another 5 minutes or until crisper and golden.

Let cool to crisp up even more.

They were perfect spread with jams/chutneys/nut butter and a cup of Redbush tea for some sunday afternoon blogging!