Homemade Goldfish Crackers and DIY Goldfish Cookie Cutter

Hi everyone!  I hope you’ve all had a great weekend and hopefully your Monday is going well too 🙂  I don’t know about anyone else, but Monday just seems to explode with things to do.  My feed reader gets packed full of things to read over night and there are blog posts to be written after being put off over the weekend(so sorry!).  And of course the house is a disaster.  Somehow little kids in a kiddie pool in the backyard with freshly mowed grass equals a messy house.  Who knew, right?

So I actually made these last week.  And unfortunately the week before our coffee table was broken by a certain toddler.  And while it’s still usable, it’s probably not the safest to keep in the house.  So the table I usually take pictures on was gone so for this shoot I decided to use my sons toy box, which just happens to be a perfect oceany backdrop 🙂  In any case, my husband made us a new table and I can’t wait to stain it and get it inside to use it 🙂

Anyways, enough chattering about nothing!  You’ll notice the edges of my crackers aren’t very pretty but that’s just due to the whole grains, the bran doesn’t cut through and leaves edges that aren’t perfectly smooth.  You can always go around after cutting them to smooth out the edges, but it’s not necessary.  You can also go around with toothpick and make little eyes and mouths on them, but again, totally optional.

If you’ve ever wanted to make fishy shaped crackers, you know that the cookie cutter is crazy expensive if you can find one that looks like a goldfish.  So when I found this tutorial at Miss Anthropist’s Kitchen  I couldn’t wait to try it:)

Here’s a basic tutorial.  Start by taking an empty pop can and cutting a strip out from around it using scissors, no wider than 3/4″.  Be careful with the edges as they can be very sharp.  Depending on the size of the can and how big you want your fish you may not need the entire section of can, but you can always shorten your piece later.  I also recommend cutting up the entire can into little strips as some will break.  And if you’re anything like me you’ll enjoy making all different shapes and sizes of fishies 🙂

In picture number one, the space between the two folds will determine the size of the fishy’s body, and in this case his body was really small.  In picture number 2 the length between the first folds and the second folds determine how long the fishes tail will be.

And picture number three, I used tape to hold mine together, but if yours are big enough you can also use staples, but I chose to make most of mine fairly small.  Yes I said most.  I made a ton.  You can also draw out what you want your fish to look like and fold your piece of can accordingly.  Also, be careful not to fold and refold one spot too many times as the metal will break very easily.

Now that you know how to make a goldfish cutter, you can really make any crackers you like into little goldfishes.  I made these crackers from Smitten Kitchen using all whole wheat flour and adding a pinch of garlic powder and paprika.  They are so buttery and rich.  I recommend this recipe for sure, although it’s not usually what we like to have for every day snacking, more of a special treat.

These crackers we have in the house most of the time though because we love them so much.  I’ve made them with original recipe using spelt and those are great too, but usually I have more whole wheat flour than spelt so I tend to make them this way more often.

[print_this]Vegan Goldfish Crackers

Slightly adapted from Oh She Glows Easy Cheezy Crackers

• 1 1/4 C whole wheat flour
• 1/3 C nutritional yeast
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• pinch garlic powder
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
• 4 tbsp water, plus 1-2 tbsp more only if needed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the whole wheat flour, nutritional yeast, onion and garlic powder and sea salt in a medium sized bowl.  Add the olive oil and the 4 tbsp of lukewarm water and mix well.  Once mixed, if there is flour remaining in the bottom add another tbsp and mix well again.  Remove the dough from the bowl and knead a couple times.  Then cut the dough in half.

Flour the dough and your surface well and roll out to 1/8″ thick and cut into whatever shapes you like or just trim the edges and cut into squares.  Move to parchment or silicone sheet lined baking sheet and place sheet in the oven.  Bake crackers for 18-20 minutes.  Turning the pan half way through.  Once done, remove from the oven and cool on the sheet until completely cooled before storing in an airtight container.[/print_this]

 

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself 😉