These Homemade Gourmet Crackers are a revelation. A copycat of the gourmet fruit and nut crackers sold at the stores to serve with cheese that I love but are pricey! These are simple to make, keeps for weeks, cost 80% less than store bought and taste so much better, you’ll be amazed (I was!).
Spectacular with cheeses and spreads, and for gifting!
Stop press!!! Big news – DOZER HAS A BUTTON!!
↑↑↑ For all Dozer lovers out there who just want to skip straight to Dozer and see what cheeky antics he’s up to today, just click on the Dozer button and it will take you straight down to him, then you can come back and read the post!!!
Oh – there is a button to jump to the Recipe too, which I’ve had for a while now, and I also added a button to jump straight down to the Video.
A button for everyone – whatever you’re after! Dozer, recipe video or just the recipe!
OK, enough about the Dozer button. Onto today’s recipe – Homemade Gourmet Crackers!! I am super excited about this one because I’ve had some great feedback from my official taste testing team (aka my mother’s golf friends who descend upon the beach shack for a post-golf lunch and provide very constructive feedback on my recipes).
These crackers are so great, I really wish I had a fantastic story to go with them. But actually, I don’t. Quite simply, gourmet crackers are all the rage nowadays but I just can’t bring myself to pay the rather obscene prices for them. Fellow Aussies may have noticed a certain brand of gourmet crackers prominently placed near the cheese and spreads section of supermarkets like Woolworths and Coles. Crackers that look just like these homemade ones – except they are round – and they cost $6 for 15 pieces. $6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have been known to drop a small fortune on designer shoes a handful of times in my life. However, I cannot bring myself to pay $6 for one packet of gourmet crackers, especially when 1 packet would never suffice for my gatherings, I’d have to get 3 or 4. Can you imagine paying $24 just for the crackers for a cheese board??
Oh wait, I just realised I totally lied. I did buy one packet – for taste testing purposes, to copy them. 😉 I’d been eyeing them off for months, wanting to do a huge cheese board with these gourmet crackers. Then finally the penny dropped – get a packet and copy them.
So that’s what I did.
These are very simple to make. It’s just like mixing up a muffin batter, except it’s baked in a loaf tin. Freeze (to make it super easy to slice thinly), slice, then bake again. It’s like making biscotti (ooooh, haven’t done that yet!!). It’s highly customisable, and brilliant for making ahead because the baked crackers stay crisp for at least 1 month OR you can keep the loaf in the freezer for weeks and weeks, then bake when you want them.
My taste testers agreed 100% that there is no contest when comparing these Homemade Gourmet Crackers to the store bought ones. With homemade, you can actually truly taste the ingredients – the spices, the cranberries, the sunflower seeds. The store bought one has far less flavour. When you taste them one after the other, which we all did, the difference is so “in your face”, it’s quite extraordinary.
If you’re planning a cheeseboard these upcoming holidays, I truly hope you consider these. Your family and friends will be blown away. They really are so simple, customisable, and make ahead – my taste testers were eating crackers I’d made 4 weeks earlier!
Oh – and they cost about 20% of the gourmet crackers that I copied. 🙂 I have a little gathering with friends this weekend, and I’m wondering how many times I will point to the crackers on the cheese board and proudly say “I made those”. I’ll ask my friends to keep count! – Nagi x
More cookie / cracker copycats
Other recipes I’ve created in the past for the same reason as these Byron Bay cookie copycat recipe (ie because I love ’em but they’re expensive!)
-
Byron Bay Cookies Copycat White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies – big, thick, buttery cookies loaded with white chocolate and macadamia nuts. Crisp with a tender melt-in-your-mouth texture, just like Byron Bay Cookies!
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Muesli Cookies (Breakfast Cookies / Granola Cookies) – copycat of the thick, chunky, chewy muesli cookies sold in cafes across Australia. A healthy breakfast option because it’s like a bowl of oatmeal in cookie form – refined sugar free, low fat, gluten free, keeps you full for ages but it tastes like a sweet cookie!
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Homemade Gourmet Crackers
Ingredients
- 1 cup / 250 ml milk (any fat % cow's milk)
- ¼ cup / 50g brown sugar , packed
- ¼ cup plain unsweetened yoghurt (I used Greek)
- ½ cup / 75g plain flour (all purpose)
- ½ cup / 75g whole wheat / wholemeal flour
- ½ cup dried cranberries (or other dried fruit of choice)
- 1 tsp baking soda / bi-carb (or 3 tsp baking powder)
- ½ cup rolled oats (or 1/3 cup more nuts of choice)
- ¼ cup sunflower seeds (or other seeds or nuts of choice)
Spices:
- ½ tsp ground turmeric (can omit)
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg (or All Spice or 1/8 tsp cloves)
- ¼ tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp dried rosemary (or ½ tsp more thyme)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F (all oven types). Grease and line a small loaf tin with baking paper (mine is 21 x 11 x 7 cm / 8.5 x 4.5 x 3”) (Note 1).
- Whisk the milk, sugar and yoghurt in a bowl.
- In a separate bowl, add plain flour, wholemeal flour and cranberries. Stir – use fingers to break up cranberries if required.
- Add remaining ingredients, including Spices, plus the milk mixture. It should be a thick batter, like muffin batter (note: batter in video looks slightly thicker because it was standing for a couple of minutes, doesn't affect outcome).
- Scrape/pour into tin. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Cool on rack, then wrap in cling wrap and freeze for at least 2 hours, up to 3 months. (Note 2)
- Unwrap loaf and allow to thaw partially so the outside is not rock hard frozen (around 20 minutes).
- Preheat oven to 120C/250F (all oven types). Place one shelf in the middle, and another shelf beneath it.
- Use a serrated bread knife to slice thinly – around 2 mm / 1/12” thick (see video). Place biscuits on 2 large baking trays, you can squeeze them in as they won’t expand or stick.
- Bake for 50 minutes or until they are a light brown, swapping trays halfway.
- Leave biscuits on tray to cool – they will harden so they snap when you break them. (Note 3)
- Store in an airtight container for 4 weeks (probably ok for longer, I’ve only done 4 weeks). Brilliant served with creamy cheeses like brie, camembert, but soft, creamy blue cheeses is the ultimate pairing!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
LIFE OF DOZER
Dozer smacking his lips over MY lunch today – a very spicy Asian Noodle Salad. No spicy salad for you Dozer! Too painful for you!
I love love LOVE these crackers! Super easy and such a great result every time I make them. I cut my loaf into 4 portions and freeze separately, so if I end up needing to make a platter without much notice, I can have some of these amazing little delights on it instead of having to make a trip to buy store bought.
They are always a hit and one of my favourite home baked treats to use as a gift with a yummy piece of fancy cheese.
I made heaps of these for last Christmas, not all were eaten(!) so I froze the remainder. ( I am the only cheese and cracker eater at home and didn’t want them to go stale).
Somehow I forgot about them. Refound them recently and thought they would be spoiled for sure.
They were perfect. I now have them stored in an airtight container with some absorbent sachets in, and they are still great!!
Currently making my sixth cook of these gourmet crackers – fig and pecan. They really are excellent and so simple to make. Thanks Nagi.
I made these for the first time this week and just made another batch tonight. Had no idea how easy they were, and they smell and taste great. Thanks Nagi 🙂
I use a little garam masala instead of nutmeg and it tastes wonderful. adds a little more complexity. fantastic recipe. people are amazed when I say these are HOMEMADE!
I can’t stop making these biscuits, and neither can anyone I make them for! I have just finished making a mega batch for a party of 70 but didn’t have enough tins so washed several 400g tomato tins and baked them in those. 160 biscuits later, they turned out perfectly! And they had the round shape you mentioned, Nagi! Very happy!
My most favourite amongst all. We actually just eat it after the first bake. Just delicious. Call it my fruit and seed cake. Awesome taste, chewy and moist, better than Xmas cake. Thank you.
OMG these are the most delicious crackers EVER! I could eat the lot plain lol We tried them with brie (yum!) but our favourite was just a smear of cream cheese. Thank goodness the recipe makes 40 or we’d have polished them off in one sitting!
Love these, they taste so good with brie or cream cheese.
Nagi- how do you make the crackers stay flat when baking? Mine always curl up, makes them look rustic and home made, but I’d like to get them flatter.
You could try putting another baking tray on top with a weight such as a large bowl with pastry weights in it – or a brick!!
Excellent crackers!
These are delicious! It’s so simple and quick to make, too. I made an extra loaf to keep in the freezer for last-minute drop-ins. We found it gets more flavoursome on day 2 as well. Another cracking recipe Nagi <3
I have made them several times with great result. Only change I made was that I baked the loaf at 160C for a bit longer for about 50 minutes.
The baking after being sliced the same – 50 minutes at 120c – perfect !
Thank you this is such an awesome recipe. My kids love these “cookies”. And everyone I know asks for the recipe. I make these at least once a month, I do find I need to double or triple the recipe as one batch is never enough. A winner at work for shared lunches, can never go wrong with a platter of these and some cheeses and dried fruits. Saves so much money as the store bought ones are so expensive.
Ooops – baking time of loaf was 40 minutes not 60 !!
VERY GOOD recipe and easy to bring together. They are beautiful and TASTY!!
Recently found out I have hypothyroid issues so this is for my fellow gluten free folks out there.. I’ve made these twice now. First time used a cup of gluten free 1:1 flour and they turned out great. I accidentally baked them at 350 instead of 250 and they still turned out so good. (Really hard, but still delicious. Butter and cheese fixed that 😅). Second time I made them I used half cup 1:1 GF flour, and half cup GF bread flour. I got lazy and left it as bread instead of Re-baking into crackers and I love it so much as bread too. You know when you get near the bottom of a bag of mixed nuts/seeds/snack mix? I found just dumping all of that into this batter is a great way to use up that last bit. Will be making these on repeat!
Finally made these after having been intimidated since they came out. I’m kicking myself because they were so so easy and taste amazing!
I have made these a few times. They are so yummy. I brought them to a party and everyone was so impressed that they were home made! I did the first bake in a loaf tin and then cut in half lengthwise before freezing. Makes the perfect size for serving with cheese.
These are deceptively simple to make and are absolutely scrumptious! I’ve made apricot & pistachio, cranberry & pumpkin seed and fig & hazelnut are next on the list!
I’ve seen packets of OB gourmet crackers here in NZ for NINE DOLLARS!!!! And I thought paying $6 for them was already pretty outrageous… they’re as expensive as the bloody cheese these days!
And these taste much better anyway 😄 Just requires a bit of planning in advance, but fantastic for celebration events, I’m making 2 batches for Christmas and Boxing Day.
Amazing. Used gluten free plain flour for both flours. Pistachios instead of seeds.
So good.
Perfect!!! Came here to see if anyone had tried gf flour. Thank you
Further to my earlier comment. I took these crackers to a party which a very well respected local chef attended. He absolutely raved about them and said how amazing they were. I was very chuffed!
I came to the comments wondering if gluten free flour would work for this. Thank you!!
I have Pinterest recipes often to be disappointing. This one is the best Xmas biscuit recipe ever and I cant wait to make a batch, wrap them in cellophane and give to friends as an unofficial present. Thank you.
This is one of the greatest recipes I have ever tried – ridiculously easy to make, except that I fail miserably at slicing thinly enough! I’m sure I’ll get it right eventually! The crackers are so good – and absolutely perfect with creamy blue cheese! (That is actually a warning – good luck only have a little!!)
Thank you Nagi – these will be forever in my culinary repertoire!
I was in pain trying to saw through these frozen loaves to cut them thin enough. My genius husband watched me struggling and suggested I use his meat slicer machine on them (he has a cheese/bread blade for it. Side note- best Father’s Day present we ever got him! It’s like a home version of a deli meat slicer – he slices roasts, brisket, potatoes, etc with it). I don’t dread making these crisps anymore – it’s sooo easy and quick! I usually double or triple the recipe, omit the spices, and then separate in a few bowls so I can add different things to each (apricots and walnuts, pistachios and fig, cranberries and almonds), cook up the batches, freeze, then slice them all at once. Then I refreeze some to cook up at a later time (so easy now that they’re pre-sliced!) and then do the final bake on the others. Sooo good – and so many compliments on these!