Sublime Chickpea Crackers

I was going to call these Chick-Cracks. But then. 

Because I like to put out a lot of dips and cheese, and because we have a lot of family and friends who, for different reasons, avoid grains and/or gluten, I am always rethinking the cracker situation. 

Sometimes I’m just like, “Fuck it,” and I cave and buy the Mary’s Gone Crackers even though they cost $100 for eleven crackers. And sometimes I make a copycat Mary’s Gone Crackers recipe, which, while totally excellent, requires that you cook both rice and quinoa, and that you then press each little spoonful of dough flat with the bottom of a glass. Plus, you can only bake, like, six crackers at a time. I certainly look forward to making them constantly in retirement, but it’s just not the right recipe for this moment of my life.

Crackers, crackers, blah blah. Birdy graduated from elementary school. More crackers, less feeling feelings! Also, by the way, Reader who doesn't like how my kids look and dress and thinks to comment on it? There is a whole world of blogs out there! Maybe find one that better aesthetically suits you?

I have walked Birdy to school every day for the past 7 years, and I took pictures on our last-ever walk. We spent the walk like we always do, nibbling weeds and talking about how much we love the walk, and how funny it is that that's what we always talk about. She's joining Ben at his fabulous performing-arts charter school, and I'm psyched for her. But it is possible that at the end of my life, I'll look back and decide that this--walking Ben and Birdy, and then just Birdy to school--was the single best part of it. Crackers. 

Thus, these. I am in love with these crackers. In love! 

Wait, are we crackers? I thought we were peppers.

For one thing, they are the easiest—they are ready to go into the oven before the oven is preheated, that’s how easy. For another, I love how they taste. I’ve been seasoning them with cumin and garlic, so that they taste like a cross between falafel and poppadom, and they are crazily good and go perfectly with the middle-eastern dips I’ve been making. I’ve also seasoned them with caraway, which I love, and of course you could go the dried herb route with rosemary and/or you can add more seeds or onion or whatever you like. They are so insanely good that everybody wants the recipe—although, full disclosure, that might be because I keep saying, “Aren’t these so insanely good that you want the recipe?” But they seriously are. I no longer make them because they’re gluten-free.

The crackers are shown here with muhammara, a crazily good red-pepper-walnut-pomegranate dip. I used Heidi Swanson’s recipe, but substituted (gluten-free) almond meal for the breadcrumbs, and added a crushed clove of garlic, a la Ana Sortun in her book Spice. Garnished with walnuts and mint.

Not a great shot, no. But I brought the crackers to a party on a big wooden board, with a trio of dips, and I loved how it all looked. Besides the muhammara, I made the crazy-delicious Beet Tzatziki and the good Warm Buttered Hummus, both from Ana Sortun's book.

Michael doing clean-up crew on the muhammara blender.

Happy summer! Or almost summer.  xo

Sublime Chickpea Crackers

I lifted the bones of this recipe from here via here. Process shots are below. I usually double the recipe and bake two sheets at a time because WE CANNOT GET ENOUGH.
*Edited to add: I have since made these, the exact same way, substituting almond flour for the chickpea flour. They were delicious! More fragile and not as crunchy as the chickpea version, but excellent in their own nutty way. I'm wondering if you could use pretty much any kind of flour. I'm throwing away my rolling pin!

3 tablespoons ground flax seed


1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons water


1 cup chickpea flour


1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

½ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon each cayenne and black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

Coarse salt for sprinkling

Heat the oven to 350 and line a large baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat. I have only done these with the mat. If you have, or prefer to use, neither of these things, you could try cooking spray, but with straight-up oiling the pan, I feel like they’ll stick.

Stir the flax into the water (I do this right in the measuring cup) and leave it to thicken while you measure the dry ingredients.

Use a fork to mix together the dry ingredients, then add the flax water and olive oil and mix well.

Scrape the batter onto the prepared pan and spread it as thinly and evenly as you can. I use an off-set spatula for this, which makes life easy, but the first time I made them, I used my own wet fingers and it went medium. I think that a plain old butter knife might be a reasonable middle ground. Sprinkle the batter with coarse salt and then put them in the middle of the oven to bake. Or put them in the oven, then remember you forgot to sprinkle them with coarse salt, and pull them out quickly.

Bake the crackers until they are browned at the edges and golden all over and (you will have to surmise) crisp. This will take anywhere from 15-25 minutes. Check them at 15, and then watch them carefully: mine lift the mat up at the corners, and get nice and deeply golden, except where I didn’t spread the batter thin enough.

Leave the crackers to cool on the pan for about twenty minutes or so, then break them into pieces. If some of the crackers break not with the a nice snap but with, instead, an unsatisfying cakey tearing, leave those ones on the pan and pop them back into the (turned-off) oven for a while. I find that the residual heat from the oven is perfect for crisping up the stubborn spongy ones.