We are equal opportunity folks around here.  Mrs J started off the day making a new supply of baked doggie treats using pretty much the same recipe as last time but improving it somewhat with bacon and more garlic.  Did I say improving?  I ate one of these things and I’m not ashamed to admit they are pretty good.  Buddy and Jack both growled at me, and Annie gave me such a disapproving look I limited myself to just the one.

Well, with the aroma from baking those slowly fading I renewed my search for a copycat Ritz cracker-to no avail.  I did find a few other disgruntled folks with the same result for the same search but no recipe turned up.  I should say no recipe showed up for a Ritz clone-I was amazed at how many recipes Google returned that had Ritz crackers as an ingredient.  Saw one recipe for “mock apple pie” that used the crackers in some fashion.  I was loathe to find out about just how and so will just leave you with the mention.

We did settle on a recipe for butter crackers-just a generic butter cracker recipe that seemed very simple.  We made the dough in a food processor:

2 c flour

1 stick butter

1 t baking powder

1T sugar

1/2t salt

~2/3c water

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of the machine and pulse a few seconds to combine.  Cut the cold butter into pats, and add them as you pulse for a few seconds each-you want the butter/flour mixture to start looking like meal.  Add the water while running the machine on low-the dough will form a ball shortly.  Take the ball of dough and cover with plastic in a bowl, or put it into an empty bread sack like I did.  Rest it for a while as the oven preheats to 400.

We opted to run the dough through the pasta machine to get better uniformity.  We ran a portion of dough then cut out 2″ discs with a biscuit cutter.  These we arrayed on a silicone baking mat on a tray, poked them with the tines of a fork to keep the crackers from forming tiny pita breads and brushed the crackers with butter.  That helped the salt stick a bit better if nothing else.  10 minutes in a 400 degree oven worked pretty well for us, a minute or two more perhaps, we tend to look in there when the timer beeps and dial in another minute or two as seems right at the time.

I’m already figuring tweaks to the recipe, one fellow mentoned using butter flavored shortening in lieu of butter, we may try some lard plus butter, and I think the addition of an egg yolk could be useful.

Stay tuned!

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