Sourdough Crackers

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🟢 Beginner⏱ ~30 min + 30 min rest🍪 2 trays

The easiest, most satisfying way to use up sourdough discard — thin, crisp, snappable crackers that beat anything in a packet and take minutes to put together. Roll them as thin as you dare, load them with flaky salt and seeds, and they'll vanish off the board. Endlessly adaptable, too.

Ingredients

  • 200g sourdough discard (or active starter)
  • 100g Shipton Mill strong white flour (or wholemeal for a nuttier cracker)
  • 40g olive oil or melted butter
  • 4g fine salt
  • Herbs, seeds or cracked pepper, to flavour
  • Flaky sea salt, to top

Method

  1. Mix: Combine the discard, flour, oil, salt and any herbs or seeds into a stiff dough. Knead briefly until smooth, then cover and rest 30 minutes (or up to overnight in the fridge for more tang).
  2. Roll thin: Divide the dough in two. Roll each piece out directly onto a sheet of parchment, as thin as you can — 1–2mm. The thinner you roll, the crisper the cracker.
  3. Score & top: Brush lightly with oil, scatter over flaky salt and extra seeds, and score into squares or rectangles with a pizza wheel so they snap apart cleanly later.
  4. Bake: Bake at 180°C for 15–25 minutes until deep golden and crisp all over — watch the edges, which colour first. If the centres are still pale, pull the done edges and return the rest.
  5. Cool: Cool completely on the tray; they crisp up fully as they cool. Snap along the scored lines and store in an airtight tin.
Tip: Flavour them however you like — rosemary and sea salt, sesame and fennel, cracked black pepper and parmesan, or a dusting of smoked paprika. This is a brilliant use for the discard you'd otherwise throw away.

Don't waste your discard — and keep a lively starter going. Ours is live, organic and ready to bake in 2 hours.

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★ Tested in my kitchen

Recipe by Richard. I bake fresh sourdough every single day for the guests at the Airbnb we run, and I've baked and tweaked this one 50+ times before sharing it — so it's reliable enough to hand to someone making their first loaf.

My kitchen sits at around 22–23°C. I mix to a dough temperature of ~25°C (I check it with a probe thermometer), bulk ferment on the side, cold-proof overnight in the fridge, and bake in a cast-iron Dutch oven until the internal temperature hits ~98°C. The times in this recipe assume a similar setup — watch your dough, not the clock, and adjust to your own kitchen.

See how I bake — my kit, temperatures & hard-won tips →