Going Crackers

I love old movies.  In the movie Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina is a trained French chef who says she can make a soufflé out of crackers.   My inquiring mind has always wondered how one could do that.  Here is what I have figured out by playing with saltines.  You can also make crepes, pancakes and candy with saltines. I’ll share my recipes with you.

To see the movie Sabrina on You Tube you can go to:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X176JGhlOwA  

Audrey making a cracker souffle 

Saltine Soufflé 

Salted saltine crackers

Grated or sliced cheese of your choice

2 eggs

About 1 cup milk or half and half if you want richer

Since you can’t put a square peg in a round hole, you can break up your cracker a bit to layer your    ramekin.  I put one cracker in and the broke up another one and used about half of it to put around the cracker.  I had 3 layers of crackers.

Spray Pam into your ramekins and line with one layer of broken crackers.

Put cheese slices of your choice on top of each layer of crushed cracker.  I used a white sliced cheddar.  You can use grated cheese if you have it. 

Continue layering cheese and crackers ending with cheese.

Crack 2 eggs and beat well.  Add to a cup of milk. Beat eggs and milk until very well blended.

If you are using unsalted saltines add a pinch of salt to the recipe. I added a bit of pepper to the egg mixture.  You could also add hot sauce or onion powder.  What ever seasoning you wish.

Carefully pour over cheese and crackers.

Let sit for at least a 1/2 hour before putting into the oven.

Put into a 350 degrees F oven for about 30 minutes.  Make sure you put it on a sheet pan because mine overflowed.  Be careful taking it out of the oven or it will fall.  Mine fell too.  Serve warm out of the oven.

Saltine Crepe

1 cup of finely crushed saltines

2 eggs

1 cup milk

3 Tbsp melted butter

¼ tsp Kosher (only if you are using unsalted saltines)

1 tbsp sugar (for sweet crepes only)

1 tsp vanilla extract (for sweet crepes only)

Combine about two sleeves of saltine crackers in the blender.  Blend until well crushed into a powder.  Measure out 1 cup of crushed crumbs.  Add your milk and let sit until the milk is well absorbed.  Add the other ingredients and blend. The batter should be fairly thin and pourable, but still creamy.

Now let the batter rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This is an important step. If after resting it is still too runny add a tablespoon of flour and let it rest again.  It run across the pan when you swirl it.

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat, and add some butter, or spray it with cooking spray.

Let the pan get hot for about 30 seconds, then pour a small amount of crepe batter onto the center of the pan. About ¼ cup to ⅓ cup should be the right amount for most pans. Swirl the pan around to coat the whole pan

Let the crepe cook for about 30 seconds.

Flip the crepe, let it cook for about 10 more seconds, and then remove to a plate.

Stack your crepes until you have cooked all the batter.  Fill your crepes with what ever you wish. Roll them up or fold them in half or quarter them. 

You can sprinkle them with powdered sugar or top with fruit.  I like sweet crepes and use pudding or fruit. I filled mine with blueberry pie filling today.  Savory ones can be filled with spinach, ham, asparagus or what ever your imagination comes up with.

Saltine Cracker Pancakes

I like pancakes but can not eat a stack.  I usually eat just one.  You can make up a stack and freeze them if you can’t eat them all.

1 cup of crushed crackers (you could use graham crackers also). About 2 sleeves.

1 Egg

1 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Butter

Syrup

Again, using your blender or food processor crush the crackers into fine crumbs.

Soak the crumbs in the milk for about 5 minutes to soften them. Add the egg and vanilla and mix in blender or processor until well blended.   If it is too runny, add a tablespoon of flour until it is the consistency of a pancake batter.

You can add Cinnamon, fruit, nuts or anything else you might like.

Butter the pan between each cake and cook them up like pancakes.  You don't need to use as much butter as I did, but I love butter.  Look for the bubbles before flipping.  Grill up all of the batter.  Drizzle them with some syrup. I did not know I was eating crackers.

  Saltine Toffee 

40 salted saltine crackers or enough to line your pan

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a small pot combine sugar and butter and bring to a boil. Once mixture is at a boil, continue boiling for 3 minutes. Mixture should be a deep caramel color. Immediately pour over saltines and spread to cover crackers completely.

Bake at 400°F 5 to 6 minutes. The crackers will look all bubbly.

Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the top and let sit a couple of minutes to melt. 

Use a spatula to spread the melted chocolate and cover the crackers. You may add chopped nuts, sprinkles or chopped candy bars or M & M’s to the top.

Other uses of crackers:

• Mom always used crackers as a filler for her meatloaf and salmon loaf.
• I use crushed crackers when I make a tuna casserole 
• When I worked at Hayes, his tenderloin recipe was to use crushed crackers as the breading.  You can search this site to find the recipe by typing in tenderloin up in the top left hand corner.
• I use crushed crackers when I make scalloped corn.
• I like to make the Hidden Valley Oyster Cracker recipe using oyster crackers.  See the web for the recipe

There are so many uses for crackers it is easy to go crackers.

Variation

I made a variation of this by using gluten free graham crackers for my grandson.  You can do it with regular graham crackers.  Because it was graham crackers I decided to top them with marshmallows and add one final step of putting them under the broiler.  Staci said they were addicting and Saylor liked them.  

Smores Bark 

Saylor and I made Smores Bark today using his gluten free graham crackers.  You can make this with regular graham crackers or even saltines if you like.

½ cup butter

½ cup brown sugar

1 box of gluten free graham crackers

2 cups milk chocolate chips

2 cups of miniature marshmallows 

Over low heat, melt your butter and add the brown sugar.  Let it simmer just for 3 minutes.  When it is well combines take it off the heat and let it cool a bit. 

Spread your crackers on a silt pat or parchment paper.  They should be touching each other.  Spread your hot caramel over the crackers and put it in an over at 350° for 5 minutes.  The caramel with bubble up.  While the crackers are still hot, put your chocolate chips on top and using a spatula after they have melted a bit, spread the chocolate over the crackers and frost completely.  Cover the chocolate with the marshmallows and put under the broiler.  Stand there and watch them.  It only takes a minute.  You decided how dark you want the marshmallows to be.  Take out and cool.  Break the crackers up and store in a baggie to keep them fresh. 

Hope you have a terrific day.  We're in for more snow through the weekend.  Blessing to you and yours.