How to make crackers at home
I love crackers. They are crispy and crunchy and it’s awesome to have them when you are watching a movie or just relaxing.
My trip to Brown’s Cheese Farm in Limuru made me understand how they are made.
If you didn’t know, a cracker is a flat, dry baked food created from flour that can be seasoned with seeds, herbs, salt or in this case, cheese, since I was visiting the cheese factory before baking.
Charity Kariuki, my guide, took me round and made me understand the work behind the creation of this delicacy.
As I learnt, crackers can be eaten on their own or with other accompaniments such as cheese, dips, peanut butter, jam or even butter.
A mild cracker can be used as a flavour or food tester between samples and sometimes, they can be added to soups to make them taste better.
According to history, the first cracker was created in 1792 in Massachusetts by John Pearson. The man was searching for a kind of biscuit for sailors that would last longer than normal biscuits.
When he mixed flour and water and baked it. Voila! Crackers came to being and up to now, we are eating them in different shapes and flavours.
Knowing that makes me wonder how people just wake up and come up with recipes that work, to be celebrated many years even after they pass on.
We arrive in the crackers room and it smells nice. We find the hardworking staff, some preparing the dough, others cutting it into various shapes, all of them in unison working tirelessly to produce a great product.
Charity lets me know that they have eight varieties of crackers, all done by hand. After cooling down, they are ready for packaging.
One is created from amaranth flour mixed with white flour, which makes a delicious cracker that is higher in protein than most of the others.
Another one that impressed me was the charcoal cracker, made from edible charcoal, vegetables and fresh garden herbs for a unique taste.
There is also the cheddar cheese flavour, which also added to my list of favourites when it comes to crackers.
For a perfect combo, aged cheese like comté, gouda, as well as cheddar go well with it, given the fairly thick with a hearty oil flavour. Any cracker that is butter-flavoured goes well with soft cheese.
