Sourdough Ranch Crackers

Sourdough Ranch Crackers are going to be the crackers everyone asks you to make from now on! Lucky they're so easy and take just minutes to throw together. Grab your sourdough starter and let's make a batch now.

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Discard

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Servings crackers

Calories 23kcal

Equipment

Digital Scales
Mixing Bowl
Rolling Pin
Cracker Roller
Baking Trays

Ingredients

200 g Sourdough Starter (or sourdough discard)
150 g All Purpose Flour
30 g Ranch Seasoning (see notes)
40 g Butter (cold)
50 g Cheddar Cheese (shredded)

Topping

20 g Olive Oil (for brushing)
5 g Sea Salt (for topping)
1 tablespoon Dill Tips (dried dill)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F/170C.
Add sourdough starter, flour, ranch seasoning, butter and cheddar cheese to the bowl of a food processor and blitz until it forms a mixture that looks a bit like wet sand. It won't form a cohesive dough at this point, but will stick together at the next step.
Tip the dough out onto the counter and use your hands to squeeze the dough together into a cohesive dough. It should stick together, but not stick to your hands.
Divide the dough into two portions and form these into balls (again, the dough should be tacky, but shouldn't stick to your hands).
Place each ball onto a piece of parchment paper and flatten out with your hands into a rough rectangle.
Now roll each one out to a thin sheet of dough using a rolling pin. You want it around 1/16" to ⅛" or 1.5mm - 3mm thick. The thinner you can get it the better because thick crackers won't cook properly and won't crisp up in the oven.
The dough should not be sticky at all and easy to roll - however see notes below for some troubleshooting if your dough is sticky.
Use a cracker roller to perforate dough. If you don't have a cracker roller you can use a cookie cutter or knife to cut into crackers and then pierce each one with the tines of a fork.
Place each parchment paper with dough on top onto a baking sheet. This recipe will generally need two baking trays.
Brush dough with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and dried dill tips.
Bake at 350F/170C for around 30 minutes or until crackers are golden and crisp. You might need to flip the crackers half way through baking to ensure they crisp up evenly. I also break mine into individual pieces around half way through baking time to help them cook through properly.
Once the crackers are crisp and golden, remove from the oven and place onto a wire rack to cool. Break any crackers that are still joined together apart.

Notes

Notes on Discard - This recipe is based on a sourdough discard from a 100% hydration sourdough starter. Using active sourdough starter is perfectly fine and how I make these a lot of the time too!

Ranch Seasoning - I've used store bought ranch seasoning, but you can use any type of ranch seasoning you like. You can add more if you like, but after testing this recipe multiple times, I've found 30g is the sweet spot in terms of taste, texture and how golden brown the crackers get while baking. If you add to much ranch seasoning, the buttermilk will mean that the crackers brown too quickly.

Nutrition