I imagine oat flour can be bought commercially as well, but grinding rolled oats does the trick just fine. I first learned about this method from a cookbook I checked out from the library a while back, Dreena Burton’s The Everyday Vegan.

The oat cracker dough:

• 2 dl rolled oats, finely ground
• 1 and 1/4 dl wheat flour
• 3/4 dl nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (for color)
• 1 dl water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed

I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius, and proceeded to make the crackers exactly like the last time. The only thing I had to do differently was to ground the oats, which I did in our mini food processor. I processed them until they were fine, much like whole wheat flour.

I combined water, olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, and garlic, and placed the resulting wet mix in the fridge. Then I mixed the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, and covered a baking sheet with parchment paper. When the oven was ready, I added the fridge-cold wet mix to the dry mix bowl, stirred with a fork until combined, and rolled it out on the baking parchment with the help of a little bit of extra flour. I cut the cookies with a pastry wheel and baked them for 20 minutes, until nicely browned and crispy.

After doing a lot of online research I settled on a recipe that uses a combination of white and whole wheat flour, includes nutritional yeast, and is seasoned with garlic, cayenne pepper and a little bit of mustard. I also wanted my crackers to have a light texture, so added baking soda and lemon juice – some cracker recipes don’t have any kind of leavening to my great surprise.

This recipe is very adjustable and the spices can be just about anything. I made a batch with only whole wheat, seasoned with tahini, sesame seeds, and wakame seaweed, and Heikki really liked that combo. For me, this is the recipe that works best:

Cayenne Garlic Crackers:

• 2 dl whole wheat flour
• 1 dl wheat flour
• 3/4 dl nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (for color)
• 1 dl water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

First, I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I combined the water, olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, and garlic, and placed the resulting wet mix in the fridge to cool down. I mixed the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, and covered a baking sheet with parchment paper. When the oven was ready, I added the fridge-cold wet mix to the dry mix bowl, and stirred with a fork until combined. The dough was a little sticky at this point but that’s okay, it was still easy to roll out with the help of a little bit of extra flour.

I sprinkled the parchment paper with some flour, and rolled out the dough with a rolling pin, adding a little more flour here and there when the dough started to stick. I rolled it out until it filled the whole baking sheet, trying to make it as even as possible, and then cut it with a pastry wheeler into triangles as pictured here:

This can be done with a knife as well. It’s not necessary to cut all through the dough – the crackers will bake more evenly if they stick together in the oven, and they’re easy to separate after baking.

Now, I baked my crackers for 20 minutes, until they started to brown just a little bit. These burn very quickly, so it’s best to keep an eye on them after the first 13 minutes or so. Our oven is old and tired, and for some reason it gets very hot in the central area, so the crackers in the center of the baking sheet got a little browner than the ones around the sides. If your oven bakes unevenly, it might be a good idea to turn the baking sheet around midway through baking.

The crackers don’t need to be completely crispy once taken out of the oven, they do crisp up while cooling down. I let mine cool completely on the baking sheet, and then stored them in an airtight container.