A basic recipe which can be adapted into 100s of variants – get creative with any flavoursome juices that you have left from jars of antipasti, pickled fruit or even fiery ginger.

Here I used the juices from a jar of pickled quince (made following the recipe for Pickled Cherries), the quince finished some weeks ago but it is always such a shame to throw away the delicious sweet & sour liquid which inevitably remains when anything preserved in a jar is finished.

I’m planning to try a batch with the fiery liquid left from a jar of Italian stuffed baby peppers (watch this space…). If you have nothing else, water will suffice, perked up with your choice of herbs and spices. A few suggestions:

• Beetroot juice & fennel
• Sun-dried tomato (use the oil from the jar in place of the olive oil) & rosemary
• Sweet roasted pepper & oregano

Should keep for a week in an airtight container.

Makes about 20

Ingredients

Plain Flour	200	grams
Sweet Pickling Liquor	90	millilitres
Olive Oil	2	tablespoons
Salt	1	teaspoon
Fennel Seeds	1	teaspoon

Main Equipment

1. Baking Sheet
2. Rolling Pin

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Mix by hand, don’t worry if initially the mixture becomes like a crumble topping – if it won’t come together as a dough, keep adding a few drops of water until it does. Go easy as the mixture can quickly become too wet and before long you are in an infinite loop of adding liquid and flour.
3. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper onto your baking sheet and sprinkle with flour. You are going to shape and cut the dough directly on the baking sheet (as this avoids picking up the delicate crackers and risking breaking them, saves time too) so the paper-and-flour layer both protects your baking sheet when you cut the crackers and ensures nothing sticks.
4. Place the dough onto the covered baking sheet and roughly shape. It really doesn’t need to hold a neat shape, it will come together as you roll it out.
5. Use your rolling pin to gently roll the dough into a sheet about the thickness of a pound coin; do this by making small movements of just a couple of half-turns up, down, left and right. If you don’t have a rolling pin, a robust glass or a clean wine bottle can do the trick.
6. If the edges are very cracked (as mine were!) try to neaten them up a little by pushing the dough back together with the outside edge of your hand. No need to worry too much – you’ll just get slightly burnt edges but no harm done.
7. Gently cut into shapes of your choice. If you have a plastic knife or pastry cutter this is ideal – protects your baking sheet and the dough seems less keen to stick to the plastic than a metal knife. Don’t go too big with your crackers – you want light and crispy biscuits at the end of it, if they are too big the centres will be doughy or the edges burnt.
8. Bake for 12-ish minutes in a hot (200c) oven.
9. Allow to cool completely before serving with your choice of cheese & chutney.
10. Store any leftovers in an airtight container. Should keep for up to a week but just try them and see – will go soft and stale rather than growing anything that will harm you. She says confidently.