Einkorn Sourdough Crackers with Nut Butter

Nut butter crackers are a favorite snack food for many children. For my family, peanut butter crackers are the fave with sunbutter crackers the distant second place winner.

Unfortunately, the commercial options for nut butter crackers even from organic brands leave much to be desired in the ingredients department. Check out the ingredients list for one highly popular brand of certified USDA Organic peanut butter crackers:

Organic Wheat Flour, Organic Peanut Butter, (Dry Roasted Organic Peanuts, Organic Palm Oil, Organic Sugar, Salt), Organic Oleic Safflower Oil and/or Organic Oleic Sunflower Oil, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Palm Oil, Sea Salt, Leavening (Baking Soda, Ammonium Bicarbonate, Cream of Tartar), Soy Lecithin (An Emulsifier), Enzymes.

The problem with these ingredients that might seem acceptable at first glance?  The nonorganic soy lecithin which is possibly of genetically modified origin and the “enzymes” which is a sneaky pseudonym for MSG.

But wait!

The crackers are USDA Organic. Doesn’t that mean that everything must be nonGMO?

Not necessarily!  USDA Organic simply means that at least 95% of the ingredients are organic. The remaining 5% is up for grabs and might possibly be genetically modified (1).  Organic is usually but not always GMO-free.

This same brand, by the way, used the words “yeast extract” instead of enzymes awhile back, but consumers caught onto that MSG alias, so now it’s been changed to “enzymes”.

Because there are really no acceptable brands of nut butter crackers on the market, I have made my own for years with the very few plain cracker brands I could find that had no MSG and no GMOs.  I also occasionally make crackers myself, but let’s be real.  When you’re making 3 meals a day, seven days a week for your family from scratch, whipping up a batch of crackers is way down the to-do list in priority.

I was never 100% happy with the crackers I purchased, however. Even if they were organic and contained no MSG or GMOs, there was still the glaring problem of the wheat or gluten-free grains used not being traditionally prepared.

Traditional preparation is very important to allow our human digestion to effectively extract all that wonderful nutrition from grain-based foods. It is also necessary to break down the anti-nutrients naturally present in grains so they don’t irritate and over time eventually damage the delicate gut lining which can open the door to autoimmune disease.

The three methods for traditional preparation of grains are soaking, sprouting, or sour leavening (sourdough). Sour leaving is the most practical of the three methods for sourdough crackers because sprouting produces a product that is rather crumbly (not so good for a cracker) and soaking produces a more cake-like result.

While it is possible to make your own sourdough crackers, it takes quite a bit of time – time that I usually don’t have in the kitchen.

So … for years I continued to occasionally buy cracker brands that I was definitely not completely comfortable with. Until now.

Perfect Sourdough Crackers

There is finally a cracker available that is 100% P-E-R-F-E-C-T.

Did I say they were perfect?

Yes, they are.  These crackers are as good as what I would make myself if I actually had the time to do it.  One batch takes nearly 24 hours to complete because the process requires refreshing of the sourdough starter, mixing a pre-ferment which is left to proof overnight, then mixing the final dough in the morning, which is left to rise again, and then finally baked at low temperatures so the crackers stay light and flavorful.

Check out the ingredients of this truly traditional sourdough cracker I’m now using to make sourdough nut butter crackers for my kids’ school lunches and for quick snacks at home:

Organic Einkorn Flour, Organic Einkorn Sourdough Starter (Organic Einkorn Flour, Water), Organic Palm Fruit Oil, Sea Salt.

These sourdough crackers also come in tomato basil and rosemary if you prefer a flavored cracker to plain sea salt. Here’s where to get them.

Can you believe it? Not only are the ingredients of these sourdough crackers 100%  perfect, but the wheat used is the best of the best: einkorn.

Einkorn Contains the Good Gluten

Einkorn is the only wheat I am able to easily tolerate and eat because it is the only type of wheat left on the planet that is completely unhybridized, low in gluten and very digestible. Not only is einkorn low in gluten, but the gluten is also different from the gluten molecules present in modern wheat, emmer, durum, spelt, and kamut.

The gluten in einkorn wheat lacks the high molecular weight gluten proteins that many people find hard to digest.  In fact, it could be said that the gluten in einkorn is good gluten because many folks who are gluten intolerant easily digest it!

If you have gluten sensitivity to modern wheat, you really should try einkorn wheat (not to be confused with farro). You very well may be able to digest it like I can! You can either buy the organic Jovial einkorn flour or the organic Jovial einkorn berries and grind yourself like I do. We’ve been using only einkorn in our home for several years and it is, without a doubt, the highest quality, most easily digestible, nutritious wheat you can buy.

Note that einkorn would not be appropriate for those with Celiac disease.

It’s no surprise that these wonderful einkorn sourdough crackers come from my friends at Jovial Foods.  This company is the real deal and I am proud to support them with my food dollars and by letting folks know about them on my blog.

Jovial Foods Culinary Getaway (Sneak Peak)

In fact, I am so impressed with Jovial Foods (whose products I’ve been using for years) and their commitment to quality food that is not only sustainable, but nutrient-dense and prepared traditionally, that I’ve decided to visit their facilities in Tuscany (Lucca) Italy this Fall with my journaling and photographing tween soon-to-be teen. October has some of the best weather of the year in that part of the country.

Would you like to come along with us?  You can!

I’m so excited to be heading to Italy this Fall on a Jovial Foods Culinary Getaway with my friend Jenny of Nourished Kitchen and the few dozen others who choose to join us. We’ll spend time learning traditional Italian techniques for making einkorn pasta and bread, taught by Carla, the founder of Jovial Foods. We’ll be staying at a luxurious, 18th-century Tuscan villa with large, spacious grounds and visiting spectacular sites like Pisa, Florence, and Siena all of which are just a short drive away.

You really must consider coming along (space is very limited)!  Click here for more information, the planned schedule, and to register for this once in a lifetime culinary getaway in Tuscany (Lucca) Italy.  I am so excited about this!

Below is the actual villa we will be staying in.  Can you say W-O-W?  Below that is the view from the villa window.

 

Affiliate Disclosure:  The author of this article was *not* compensated.  She was, however, sent three boxes of sourdough crackers to sample.

More Information

MSG sometimes hidden in food with labels that say “No Added MSG,” “No MSG Added,” and “No MSG”
Make Your Own Sourdough Starter
No Knead Einkorn Sourdough Bread
Can Celiacs Eat True Sourdough Bread?
Cinnamon Sugar Sprouted Crackers
Proper Preparation of Grains:  Soaking, Sprouting, Sourdough