Mushroom Crispbread

A while ago, my Mum sent me a new recipe for crispbread, which she thought seemed interesting - instead of water, it used tomato juice.

Since we ran out of crispbread a few weeks ago, I decided to give this recipe a try. However, Lundulph has developed reservations towards tomatoes, he reckons they are a bit too acidic for his stomach. Besides, tomato juice is not something I keep in the house on a regular basis. What to do, what to do, hmmmm...

Mushroom juice! Well not quite, there's no such thing, I don't think. But I always save the liquid from cans of mushrooms and freeze with the hopes of making risotto or such. But I don't make risotto too often and the frozen blocks of this liquid are slowly filling up the freezer. I'm well pleased that this substitute worked, now I can clear up the freezer, ha!

Ingredients
7 g dry instant yeast
3 dl mushroom liquid
0.5 tsp whole fennel seeds
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 dl wholemeal flour
3 dl rye flour
3 dl strong white flour
1.5 tsp salt

Method

1. Dissolve the yeast in the liquid, then add the remaining ingredients except the salt.
2. Stir together either with a spoon or your hand until it come together into a dough.
3. Turn out onto the work surface and work for a few minutes, then add the salt and work it in well.
4. Shape into a ball, place back in the bowl, cover with cling film and let rest/proof for about an hour.
5. Divide the dough into 6 parts. Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees and line a couple of trays with baking paper.
6. Dust liberally with flour and roll out one part of dough at a time as thinly as possible.
7. If you have a knobbly rolling pin, then use it at the end of the rolling, otherwise prick the dough with a fork. Then cut up into pieces as desired and place on a baking tin with a little space apart.
8. Bake for about 5 minutes and keep an eye on the crispbreads so they don't burn!
9. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Repeat with the remainder of the dough.
10. Store in an air-tight container with a piece of kitchen tissue to keep the breads dry. Will last for weeks or even longer.

The original recipe called for 2.5 dl of liquid, but this just wasn't enough and the dough was impossible to work, so I ended up adding another half a decilitre while kneading. It was still a fairly stiff dough and even after two hours, it hadn't risen much, but such is the nature of rye I think. And the reason I left it for two hours is that I was busy with other things.

A hot tip in the recipe was to use a pasta machine for the rolling. I don't have one, but it's a good idea for people who do.

The fennel was very subtle as were the sesame seeds and the mushroom flavour from the liquid, but it got me searching the internet for more interesting recipes and I've found one, which I'll try when this batch runs out. This time I cut the dough into squares of about 5 cm sides and I had quite a few for lunch, so I don't think they'll last very long.

Now rolling a stiff dough very thinly takes some effort and I spent the afternoon chipping plaster off the walls in our future bedroom, so my arms feel rather sore, but it was well worth it.

On a side note, a few days ago I noticed that my beloved butter knife has worn down dramatically over the past 20 years that I've had it and so I bought a new one and this time I splashed out on luxury - one hand crafted out of juniper wood, which is nice to hold and also smells nice. Hopefully it'll last at least as long as the old one.