How important can baking perfect sourdough crackers be? Well, if you are the Executive Chef of the soon-to-be-world-famous Serendipity Farmhouse Test Kitchen, it can make the difference between a great week or a miserable week. And I can attest, for Chef Blondie, this week has been very dark week indeed.
Let us not start with the usual discussion of my great culinary skills and successes. Even though I am the amazing Pierre LeChat, there are times when I must admit with humility that I been part of SFH Test Kitchen failures. After all, can one trust a test kitchen that does not admit to mistakes in testing procedures? – Trust is built upon honesty. – Chef Blondie and her dedicated staff live by that motto.
Sourdough Crackers – A Special Request
A very special patron of the SFH Test Kitchen made an unusual request some weeks back. He had tasted some homemade sourdough crackers and found them to be quite enjoyable. Knowing of our recent sourdough bread successes, he asked if our Test Kitchen might develop a recipe of our own. – Simply stated, we knew we could.
Immediately, I researched the massive array of recipes of this type. Chef Blondie and her able staff selected one from my top five picks. While doing my research, Ol’ Fuzz Face purchased a special cracker roller for cutting the crackers so that they would have a uniform shape.
Turning Plans into Edible Reality
Finally, the day came. We assembled our mise en place. All in the kitchen performed their assigned tasks flawlessly. – We were going to make this work.
Sourdough Crackers – A Fatal Blunder
From my vantage point, all seemed to be going well. Granted, I was a bit concerned that the cracker dough had been rolled a bit unevenly, but not enough that it should matter. The new tool had worked as advertised. Fuzzy had made a wise investment.
Chef Blondie placed the pan into the oven. She set the timer for 25 minutes as the recipe stated. – That is when the situation started to go down hill.
True the recipe said to bake for 25 minutes. But that was a maximum time. We should have started to check the crackers at about the 18-minute mark. – We didn’t.
The phone rang. Texts started coming in. Each chef in the kitchen had individual distractions occur at about the 20-minute mark. – Call it poor planning, or a blunder. However, no words can soften the emotion of failure through a faux pas that results in a fiasco.
Trust is built upon honesty. – And what you see below is the honest truth.
Sourdough Crackers – Summary
Chef Blondie assembled the entire Test Kitchen staff. We taste tested our sourdough cracker faux pas. We learned the following: the crackers that had not burned completely, tasted quite good. Our addition of home-grown rosemary highlighted the potential of this recipe.
Stouthearted chef that she is, Blondie declared, “We will recover from this disaster! We will make a great batch of Rosemary Sourdough Crackers. And when we do, we will give the world the recipe.”
That is the spirit we have in the soon-to-be-world-famous Serendipity Farmhouse Test Kitchen.
Those are known as “rustic farmhouse” crackers and they look perfect in their imperfection.
I will give this a go this week.Hoping for great results!
We’re rooting for you, Chef Blondie! We in the kitchen staff await your commands.