Everyone understands the pleasures of homemade bread, but crackers? It’s so easy to buy good crackers, why would anyone make crackers? Then, I went to a party that served homemade crackers and I could not rest until I mastered crackers. Thanks, Joan, for introducing me to the delicious crunch of homemade crackers!

Crackers are so simple: make pizza dough and roll it extra-thin (but don’t take the St. Louis option of putting tomato sauce and provel on top!). Use lots of sesame seeds and bake on a pizza stone. Turn over halfway through baking. These crackers contain yeast, which makes a superior and flakier cracker than crackers that do not have yeast.

The secret to perfect crackers is to dock the dough. This fabulous tool looks like a back scratcher, but is so much easier that endlessly pricking the dough with a fork. A good cracker dough needs lots of holes to keep it from ballooning up in the oven.
Homemade Crackers

• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2-3 cups flour
• sesame seeds as needed, about a cup

Combine the water, yeast, salt, sugar, and oil. Using a Danish dough whisk, add the flour (1/2 cup at a time) and stir until thick. Turn out onto a floured board and knead the dough until smooth, adding more flour as necessary. Place in a oiled bowl or plastic bag and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour. Heat the oven to 425 degrees with a pizza stone. Cut the dough into four sections. Sprinkle the board with sesame seeds and roll out each dough as thinly as possible, adding more sesame seeds to keep the dough from sticking. Use a dough docker to prick the dough. Place on a pizza peel and slide the dough onto the stone. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove the dough with the peel, turn over, and return the dough to the oven for another 5 minutes. Remove and break into shards.

I like to serve crackers with soft cheese and slow-roasted garlic. To roast garlic, peel a head of garlic, place in a ramekin and cover with olive oil. Bake at 275 degrees for 20 minutes.