Sweet Potato Crackers

One of my fabulous neighbors brought me these crunchy nibbles and boy, they are delicious!  She had made them as a snack for her toddler, but found that she was eating most of them.  I'm so glad she shared them with me.  Not only was my 14 month old Baby Boy begging for these crackers, but I found myself crunching on them as well. 

These crackers are simple to make and it's nice to know that they don't contain the mile-long list of ingredients that store-bought crackers contain.  I ate them with natural peanut butter and they were delicious.  I'm sure they'd be wonderful with any variety of dips like hummus, bean dip, salsa, etc.  Even sweet toppings like jam or honey would work well, or cream cheese! 

Luckily, she was kind enough to share the recipe with me.  She found it on Pinterest (a site I've recently discovered).  Let me just say that I'm having to pace myself on Pinterest, what a great site!  I wonder why I've put off checking it out for so long... 

Without further ado, here's the recipe for these crispy, golden gems:

Sweet Potato Crackers
by Merriment Design (this link has great step-by-step pictures)

1-1/2 cups organic flour (whole wheat would work great)
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons organic unsalted butter
1 medium organic sweet potato (1 cup of sweet potato puree)
1 teaspoon organic sugar (or honey)
coarse salt

Cook sweet potato until softened. You can boil it in water or  roast it in a 400 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes. Or you can cut the potato into pieces and steam it until softened. Let it cool, remove skin, and puree until smooth.

 You will need 1 cup of sweet potato purée. You can freeze any extra until you need it for this or another recipe.  Set the cooled sweet potato puree aside.

Place butter into the bottom of your mixer.  Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together into a large bowl.

Using a paddle attachment, mix the butter into the flour mixture until it becomes a coarse meal texture.

Switch to the dough hook attachment on your mixer. Add the sweet potato puree and let it stir until it turns into one big clump.

Roll it into a ball using your hands. Divide dough into 4 pieces. For easier rolling, wrap it in wax paper and chill for 1/2 hour.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and and roll each very thin. Seriously, as thin as you can roll it. You’ve got to make sure it’s all even so the crackers all bake evenly.

Cut using small cookie cutters.  Place on a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
You can sprinkle with salt, sesame seeds and a little cayenne, if desired.

Bake in a preheated 350 F oven on an ungreased parchment paper-lined jelly roll pan or cookie sheet for 10 minutes until bottoms are slightly browned.

Turn over and bake until they’re crispy. The original recipe says 5-8 minutes depending on your oven.

You want them to be crispy, not chewy. Just don’t let them get too brown.

Cool on a  wire rack before storing in a airtight container. Remember there aren’t any preservatives in these so you should probably snack them up within a week. Yum!

Shared at: Frugal Tuesday Tip, Teach Me Tuesday, Tiny Tip Tuesdays, Healthy 2 Day Wednesdays, Works for Me Wednesdays, Thrifty Thursday, Homemakers Challenge, Tastetastic Thursday, The Becoming Kitchen, Foodie Fridays, My Meatless Mondays, Becoming Lydia, Not Your Ordinary Recipes, Rattlebridge Farms Foodie Fridays, Melt In Your Mouth Mondays, Little House in the Suburbs, Claire Justine, Weekly Creative, Totally Tasty Tuesday