Tea Time

This is a great recipe I just had to share...well, mostly because I love food...but these are super awesome too!

I originally found this recipe for Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps last year, when I hostessed Easter for my family, and they were a huge hit.

At seven bucks a pop to buy them at the grocery store, this is a budget friendly recipe (that makes oodles!) and is also safe on the waistline.

I am a cracker/chip kinda gal, so the crunch of these crisps are fantastic. They are super easy to make, though I did learn a few things along the way:

1. I couldn’t find a way to store them without the texture going funky. They almost went spongy when I stored them in a metal tin, so the thing I learned, is fresh is best. As you need them, pull out your frozen loaf, slice what you need and bake them up fresh to WOW your guests.

2. When you bake them off for the second time round, make sure you keep a close eye on them as the little buggers burn to a crisp FAST!

3. Freeze them up nicely before you attempt to slice them, or you will end up with fat little crisp that…uhh…well doesn’t turn out so crispy!

For Easter, I served them with a Sundried Tomato and Roasted Garlic Brie cheese, that I then warmed up in the oven.

Super easy to do too:

Roast off a head of garlic, with a little olive oil drizzled on. Chop up your sundried tomatoes, a few teaspoons of chopped, toasted pine nuts, and smear it on the top of the Brie.

Yummy!

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add the raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended.
Pour the batter into two 8”x4” loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.
The cooler the bread, the easier it is to slice really thin. You can leave it until the next day or pop it in the freezer. Slice the loaves as thin as you can and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. (I like to slice and bake one loaf and pop the other in the freezer for another day.) Reduce the oven heat to 300° F and bake them for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes, until crisp and deep golden. Try not to eat them all at once.
Makes about 8 dozen crackers.

And just in case you're wondering:

Per cracker: 30 calories, 0.8 g total fat (0.1 g saturated fat, 0.4 g monounsaturated fat, 0.3 g polyunsaturated fat), 0.7 g protein, 5.3 g carbohydrate, 0.2 mg cholesterol, 0.3 g fiber. 23% calories from fat.

Cheers!