Seeded crackers with dukkah worth making twice

The dukkah jar on my bench is nearly empty again, and it’s not even school holidays yet. That usually means one thing: I’ve been making these crackers on repeat, because once you’ve got a batch in the tin they disappear into lunchboxes faster than anything else I bake.

Why I keep coming back to this cracker

I trained on the pastry side, which means I have opinions about texture that probably run deeper than they need to for a savoury biscuit. But a good cracker is really just pastry logic in disguise. You want it thin enough to shatter, not bend. You want the fat and liquid balanced so it doesn’t turn leathery. And you want something on top that gives you a little hit of flavour before the seeds and the crunch take over.

Dukkah does that job better than almost anything else I’ve tried. It’s an Egyptian spice and nut blend, usually hazelnuts or almonds toasted with sesame, cumin, coriander seed and a bit of salt, and the smell when it hits a hot pan is one of those kitchen moments that stops whatever else I’m doing. Pressed into a cracker dough before baking, it toasts a second time in the oven and gets nutty in a way that store-bought versions rarely manage. Honestly, a lot of the jarred dukkah I’ve bought from supermarkets tastes flat by the time it gets to the shelf, the cumin’s gone dull and the nuts have lost their crunch. If you’ve got fifteen minutes, making your own is worth it.

What actually goes into the mix

This is a wholemeal spelt and seed base, which gives you fibre and a bit of nuttiness without tasting like a health food store. I’ve written before about why fibre matters more than most of us think, and crackers like this are one of the easier ways to get some into a school lunchbox without anyone noticing. The chia seeds do double duty here, they bind the dough a little like an egg would, and they swell just enough to hold everything together once it’s rolled thin.

I grow a fair bit on my balcony in Sydney, mostly herbs and chillies that never quite make it into this recipe, but the discipline of measuring things precisely for pastry has followed me into everything else I cook. Crackers are unforgiving if you eyeball the water. Too much and you get a dough that won’t roll thin. Too little and it cracks before it even reaches the oven.

Ingredients

• 100g mixed seeds (sunflower, pepitas and sesame, roughly equal parts)
• 20g chia seeds
• 60g wholemeal spelt flour (or plain flour)
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 150ml water, approximately
• 2-3 tbsp dukkah, homemade or a good quality bought one
• Flaky salt, for the top

For homemade dukkah, if you’ve got a spare ten minutes: toast 50g hazelnuts and 2 tbsp sesame seeds separately in a dry pan until golden, then pulse with 1 tbsp cumin seeds, 1 tbsp coriander seeds and 1 tsp sea salt, toasted first, until you’ve got a rough, uneven crumb. Don’t over-process it into a powder, you want texture.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced and line two baking trays with paper.
2. In a bowl, mix the seeds, chia, flour and salt together.
3. Add the olive oil and most of the water, then bring it together with a butter knife or your hands until you’ve got a dough that holds when pressed, adding a splash more water if it’s still crumbly.
4. Rest the dough for 10 minutes. This lets the chia swell and makes rolling much easier.
5. Divide the dough in two. Roll each piece between sheets of baking paper as thin as you can manage, aim for about 2-3mm, it should feel almost translucent in patches.
6. Peel back the top paper and scatter the dukkah over the surface, pressing it in gently with the rolling pin so it sticks.
7. Score into rough rectangles or shards with a sharp knife, then scatter with a little flaky salt.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes, checking after 15, until golden and firm at the edges. The centre pieces might need a few extra minutes.
9. Cool completely on the tray before breaking apart and storing in an airtight container. This step matters more than people think, crackers that seem soft out of the oven crisp right up as they cool.

The texture you’re actually after

If you’ve ever made pastry, you’ll know the difference between a dough that’s rolled with confidence and one that’s been fussed over. Same rule applies here. Roll it once, roll it evenly, and don’t keep working the same patch trying to get it perfectly uniform. A cracker with a slightly uneven thickness bakes with more character anyway, some parts blister and puff, some stay flat and snappy, and that’s the point.

A serving idea for the lunchbox

These hold up well plain, but I like breaking a few into a container alongside some chickpea and roast capsicum salad for something more substantial, or just a wedge of cheese and a handful of grapes for the simplest version. For the school lunchbox crowd, I’ll sometimes pack them next to a small tub of hummus, which does the job of a dip without turning the whole box soggy by lunchtime. They’re also good sitting next to roasted chickpeas three ways if you want a proper savoury snack platter for the afternoon slump, which I’ve written about separately in what actually helps the afternoon energy slump.

The variation worth trying, and one that isn’t

Swap the dukkah for a mix of finely chopped rosemary and lemon zest and you get something closer to a rustic Italian cracker, which works well with soft cheese. That one I’d make again.

What I wouldn’t bother with is trying to make these gluten-free by swapping the spelt for almond meal alone. I tried it twice and both times the dough was too oily to roll thin and the crackers baked up more like a biscuit than a cracker, dense rather than snappy. If you need gluten-free, a proper gluten-free flour blend with a touch of extra chia works better, but plain almond meal on its own isn’t the answer here.

According to Eat for Health, most Australian adults still don’t get enough fibre in a typical day, and small, repeatable swaps like this are more realistic than an overhaul. Nutrition Australia makes a similar point about snacks generally, that the ones we actually stick with are the ones that don’t require much thought once the initial batch is made. That’s really the whole argument for keeping a tin of these on the bench, and for reading the quiet case for cooking at home more often if you need convincing that the effort is worth it on a Tuesday.

Mine rarely last the week. I reckon that’s the best review a cracker can get.

— Mei Lin, Golden Door Living kitchen