If you’ve been to a party recently, there’s a good chance you’ve come across raincoast crisps®. They are highly addictive crackers filled with nuts, seeds and dried fruit, created by Lesley Stowe, a Parisian-trained chef based in Vancouver. They come in all kinds of flavors such as apricot and ginger, and fig and olive and have a sweet and savory flavor so they pair exceedingly well with cheese. A slim little sleeve of them is about $7 so I was thrilled to see a recipe for a copycat recipe from Dinner with Julie blogger and genius cookbook author and food writer, Julie Van Rosendaal. I was lucky enough to meet Julie a couple of years ago and in person she's just as funny and charming as she comes across on the blog. She's also has mad skills as a recipe developer.
Julie’s recipe is for Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps, but I happened to have plenty of figs and almonds so I went with those and added a healthy dose of cinnamon rather than rosemary. The recipe is really easy, it just requires a lot of ingredients. It’s basically like a biscotti recipe, you make a batter, bake a loaf, then slice it and bake the slices again. It does requires the ability to slice the loaf very thinly. Julie recommends freezing the loaf but I’m not nearly patient enough. I make my slices a bit thicker than she does and reduced the recipe by half, so I get just about 3 dozen crackers per batch. Obviously if you want to make more, you can simple double it.
These crisps were a bit hit at Thanksgiving this year. They are great for any cheese or charcuterie plate or just for snacking, and a package of them would make a nice hostess gift. They are also incredibly easy to adapt. You can pretty much make them with any combination of dried fruit and nuts you like, just adjust the herb or spice to complement your choice (or leave out the spice entirely if you prefer). For my next batch I'm considering apricots, pistachios and cardamom or cherry, walnut and nutmeg.
Fig & Almond Crisps
adapted from a recipe by Julie Van Rosendaal of Dinner with Julie
Makes about 3 dozen
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons honey
1/2 cup chopped dried figs
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
2 Tablespoons flax seed, ground
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Heat oven to 350 degrees. and grease an 8x4-inch loaf pan.
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir, then fold in the figs, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax and cinnamon and stir just until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake until golden and springy to the touch, about 35 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack (the bread needs to be very cool in order to slice thinly).
Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Slice the loaves thinly and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake them for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake until crisp and brown, about 10 minutes. Let the crisps cool on a rack. If they aren’t crunchy enough, return them to the oven set to 200 degrees for about 10 minutes.
Makes about 3 dozen crisps.
Enjoy!
