Potato Crackers

I've invented something new and I want the world to know about it. Of course, posting it on this blog isn't going to accomplish the goal of telling the world, since I think only my sister reads it. But at least the recipe will be recorded somewhere other than in my food-stained notebook.

I'm not sure "the world" is going to greet this recipe with enthusiasm, to be honest. Its star ingredient is potato flour, and who buys that?! People like me, who think it's fun to try different kinds of flours, who twice visited Portland, OR and took a bus 1 hr outside the city to visit the Bob's Red Mill store.

See, it's a red mill.

So many flours!

Actually, the reason I bought potato flour was that I had this idea I could use it during Passover. We tend to eat a lot of potato things during Passover, since it's one of the few carbs (besides matzo) that is traditionally permitted. Growing up and in college I remember seeing potato starch during Passover, and even now I often rely on french fries as one of the foods I can still order if I end up in a restaurant. Nowadays there are so many gluten-free recipes calling for different kinds of flours, I figured I could either find one that called for potato flour or substitute the potatoes for a flour of a similar texture, like rice flour.

(My sister asked me once, "Who is the target audience for your blog? Semi-vegan Jewish hippies?" Well, that or I'm just writing it for myself.)

So I bought the potato flour and found ... it tastes a lot  like potatoes. It cannot be used in any baked goods that you don't want to taste like potato. When I discovered this (no, I did not deduce this fact on my own, I had to discover it through trial and error), I considered the purchase a failure, and the flour sat in my cabinet for months. (Obviously the thing to do with an ingredient you never intend to use again is to keep it sitting in your cabinet.)

Then a couple months ago I was making a cracker recipe that called for rice flour, which I don't have, and I thought, "Hm, it wouldn't be bad if these crackers ended up tasting like potatoes. I'll substitute that potato flour." That particular substitution did not quite work, but it succeeded in showing me that it's totally fine if crackers taste like potatoes. Why shouldn't they? So I started experimenting ...

For my first experiment, I made vegan sour cream and substituted it for [something, I forget] in the previous cracker recipe. I was on the right track! It took me three tries, but now I have something awesome and am going to have to start regularly buying potato flour. These taste like a cross between a potato chip and a baked potato, with a sour cream and vinegar flavor. So good!

sorry for the shadow here

Potato Crackers

Ingredients
1/2 c. oats or other non-sticky flour (e.g., cornmeal, something that does not stick together when you wet it)
1/2 c. silken tofu
3 Tbsp canola oil
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 cup potato flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp herbs (optional)
3 Tbsp white vinegar
1/4 cup milk (almond, soy, etc)
water, as needed

Put the oatmeal into a blender and grind until it resembles a coarse flour. Pour out into a mixing bowl. (If you're using something already ground, like cornmeal, skip this step.) Add the potato flour, wheat flour, nutritional yeast, salt, and herbs, and stir to mix.
Put tofu, oil, lemon juice, and sugar in the blender. Blend for a few seconds. Pour out into the bowl with the flours and stir well with a spoon. You should be able to mix it enough that all the flour is incorporated, but it will be very crumbly. Add the vinegar and mix again. Add the milk. If the dough is still not sticking together, add a little water at a time. You don't want the dough to end up sticky, you want it just wet enough to hold together.
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a cookie sheet.
Dump the dough onto the cookie sheet and roll it out thin. You want it to take up the whole pan, which might look impossible at first, but you'll need to roll it as thin as you can. Also, try to make it even so it will cook evenly. It can be helpful to put a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough when you're rolling. (then take it off, don't bake the paper)
Score it into squares, i.e. draw lines with a knife lightly across the top of the dough.
Bake for 20 minutes, then check on it. If you want to be really fastidious, take it out and break off any pieces around the edges that have browned or that are hard enough to break off easily. The middle may still be soft, and you can put it back in the oven for another five minutes. The goal is for it to be hard and dry enough for the crackers to easily snap apart along the lines, but not to get any browner than golden brown. You can also take the whole thing out of the oven when the edges start to brown, and the middle may still be chewy.
Break apart the crackers and let them cool