Homemade Wheat Thins

I was never really a Cheez-Its kinda gal.

But I was, and IS, a total Wheat Thins gal.

When I have those wheat thins, I don't wanna share. When I have those wheat thins, they disappear in about two days. When I have those wheat thins, I see no other cracker.

If you give me Wheat Thins, I like you lots.

If you're a boy who gives me Wheat Thins, then mister, we might talk. Unless you're creepy. Then I'm just going to take the box and run.

I found the recipe for these homemade wheat thins from Smitten Kitchen, a.k.a one of the best food blogs out there. I was thrilled, but I have to be honest here and say that these didn't live up to my (mile-high) expectations. Ms. Perelman is no doubt a fantastic baker and cook, so her wheat thins must have been nothing less than wonderful. Mine, on the other hand, I liked very much, but not enough to let go of the box from the store.

BUT that doesn't take away from the fact that I devoured these crackers in, again, a couple of days. The whole wheat flour gives the dough such an irresistible, nutty aroma. I stopped short of kneading and just... breathed. They're crunchy yet tender. Buttery. Tasty.

In short, these babies have their own charm.

Do you have to bake them? Gosh, no. But you can take a look at how I made them, because it's pretty cool. You can also, out of the goodness of your heart, leave me a nice comment or send me a sweet text, and totally make my day ^O^

Oh, and get me a box of Wheat Thins. Can't forget that. 



Today I'm going to take you through the process with a whole lotta pictures. 

This is exciting stuff. Brace yourselves.

First, gather your ingredients.

Today we're using whole wheat flour. Which means whole grain goodness, and whole grain yumminess.

I just typed yumminess.

I can do this.

I bought paprika just for these crackers. Paprika is slightly spicy, and it will give a tiny and subtle kick to our wheat thins.

You can use paprika for soups, poultry, grilled fish, whatever floats your boat.

It's really quite an amazing spice.

I don't believe we've had the pastry cutter talk yet.

What you see on the left is not a weapon for angry bakers out there. In fact, the blades won't be sharp enough to cut your skin. Unless you deliberately want to cut your fingers...in which case you're just weird.

A pastry cutter is used for most scones, biscuits, pie doughs, and the like.

If you don't have a pastry cutter, that's totally fine. I once made these scones without it. You can use your fingers, two knives, or a food processor to break up bits of butter into small pieces.

Speaking of which, that is exactly what we're up to: cutting the butter into pieces and incorporating it into the flour mixture.

...like so.

See how the mixture is really crumbly, and you can see the tiny pieces of butter with the flour?

Excellent.

Ice-cold water is poured over the mixture to bind it together in a dough.

It's a good idea to have this ready in the freezer even before you start measuring the dry ingredients.

I used a spoon to gather the pieces, all the while reveling in the divine aroma of the whole wheat flour working its magic.

At a certain point you have to go in there and knead with your hands. It's not a sticky dough- so no worries.

In fact, I thought it might have needed some more water, but it came together just fine.

This is probably the point when I stopped to just...breathe.

This is also the perk to making your own crackers.

You can't buy this experience, you know? :)

When the dough comes together, roll it out onto a surface as thinly as possible.

Thin. Ya hear?

My dough looked like a heart. And a little like the African continent. How cool is this?

Plastic pizza cutter.


And a high-five for making use of random tools inside the cabinet.

Dough pieces come apart without much fuss.

You can use the edges to scrap together a new dough and roll it out again....or just bake them as is....or don't use them at all. Your call.

Poke poke.

And salt. But not too liberally.

And there we have it!

Homemade wheat thins.


Recipe from Smitten Kitchen