Lavash Crackers with Gluten-Free Dippage

Lavash Crackers
Originally uploaded by Marni Molina

This month, the Daring Bakers made history by allowing two Alternative Daring Bakers take the reigns. These awesome alt girls, in all their alt glory, issued a vegan baking challenge. And as if that weren't awesome enough it was also a savory, rather than sweet, dish. Nice! So big ups to the Daring Bakers for letting a couple of us Alt Bakers run the show and super-big ups to our Alt-Baker hostesses Sheltie Girl from Gluten A Go Go and Shellyfish of Musings from the Fishbowl for getting creative and blazing the trail. This was a rockin' challenge!


So the challenge was to make Lavash Crackers and a dip, spread, salsa, or relish to accompany it. The rules allowed for unlimited cracker seasoning options and required that all dips be vegan and gluten free.

We used the Lavash Crackers recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Cut Dough
Originally uploaded by Marni Molina

When the time to came to top my cracker dough with seasonings, I found myself standing in front of my spice cabinet, overwhelmed with all the possibilities. As I pondered my options, I found myself humming a chant for Kali Ma and quickly realized my vegan guides were whispering in my ear. Kali's colors are red and black, so I grabbed the paprika and black sesame seeds and set out to make Kali Ma Crackers.

Jai Ma!

While they baked, I made a batch of Roasted Garlic Hummus from the October 2008 issue of Veg Times.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

• Makes 2 cups
  
• Vegan
  
• Gluten-free

This creamy-zesty dip has more than 40 cloves of garlic in it. yet, roasting the garlic softens the cloves to a creamy, slightly sweet pulp that doesn't overwhelm other flavors or give off that typical garlicky aroma.

• 
  Lavash Crackers with Roasted Garlic Hummus
  Originally uploaded by Marni Molina
  4-5 heads of garlic
  
• 1 Tbs. plus 1/4 cup olive oil, divides, plus more for drizzling
  
• 1 28-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
  
• 3 Tbs. tahini

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut tops from garlic heads on large sheet of foil, and drizzle with 1 Tbs. olive oil. Wrap garlic heads tightly in foil, and bake 30-45 minutes, or until garlic heads feel soft through foil. Cool in foil.
   
2. Puree chickpeas 1 minutes in food processor, or until finely chopped. Add lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, tahini, and 1/2 cup water. Blend chickpea mixture 2-3 minutes or until smooth.
   
3. Squeeze roasted garlic pulp from each clove into chickpea mixture in bowl of food processor. Pulse hummus several times to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Spread in thin layer on parge plate, and drizzle with olive oil. Serve with whole-wheat pita wedges.

PER 1/4-CUP SERVING:

• 168 cal
  
• 5 g prot
  
• 8.5 g total fat (1 g sat fat)
  
• 20 g carb
  
• 0 mg chol
  
• 184 mg sod
  
• 3 g fiber
  
• less than 1 g sugars
• 3 WW points

This was a lot of fun. The crackers were really easy to make and quite tasty. I rolled the dough directly onto my baking stone, which I'm sure simplified things. If I make this recipe again, I'll spit the dough between two baking stones as I believe they crackers could have been thinner. But, they were still tasty and went well with the Roasted Garlic Hummus.

The Lavash Cracker Recipe allows for infinite variations. One could even top them with sugar and spices and make all sorts of sweet crackers to go with dessert spreads and dips. Even though I did all the work, I felt quite decadent while eating these babies. Let's face it, homemade crackers are pretty rare. I imagine they'd make a great gift, too! Package them up with a homemade spread and shazzam! You're a punk-rock pastry pollyanna.