Raisin Crackers!

A few days ago I got a Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer in the mail.  I always read these cover to cover out of personal interest and for work (gotta check out the competition!).  The rosemary raisin crackers caught my eye because at first they sounded disgusting, but the more I thought about them, the more I wanted to try them.  

But, lest I be a traitor to my beloved co-op, I figured I'd better give it a try making these at home first. 

(Note: I'm kind of kidding- I feel a bit like a traitor when I go there, but I think Trader Joe's is good at what they do and my co-op is good at what we do.  Our products overlap somewhat, but we're VERY different businesses with different strengths.  End note).

Now back to the crackers.  

I mixed up my usual flour blend for cracker dough (from Food in Jars) and added in the fun stuff.  For this first try, I ground up salted, roasted almonds and raisins (1/4 cup each) in a little food processor and added them to the flour before mixing in the oil and water.  For the seasonings, I used whole cumin seed, fennel seed and pink Himalayan salt.

Then I rolled these out like usual and baked.  Here's where the problems started.  I didn't grind up the almonds and raisins fine enough, so the dough wouldn't roll out thin enough.  So with thicker dough, I couldn't get the crackers crispy without cooking so long that the sugars in the raisins started to burn!

So I have some crispy, fairly browned crackers and some....  slightly soft flatbread things.  The flavor is out of this world, though.  I can't stop eating them despite their wonky texture!

Next time I'll grind the almonds VERY finely.  And I should probably taste the TJ's version, just to see what I'm up against!