With Apologies to Leslie Stowe

For those of you who are not familiar with her name, Leslie Stowe is, in my opinion, the Doyenne of canape crackers. She is the inventor of Raincoast Crisps.

Unfortunately for me Raincoast Crisps are not available where I live...I moved to South America several years ago. When I lived in Canada, I occasionally indulged myself in a box...Actually, only twice. They're about $7.00 for a 170g box. Yikes.

So, for those of you who know and love Leslie Stowe's Raincoast Crisps, but don't necessarily want to fork over $7.00 a box...and also for those of you who have yet to be smitten, here's a pretty close facsimile that you can make at home. It yeilds about 8 dozen crackers.

The batter will take you just a few minutes to whip up. The biggest job is slicing them super-thin so that you can toast them. For this, make sure you let them cool...which is tough if you're anxious to try them like I always am.

Rosemary Pecan Raisin Crisps

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
• 1/4 cup sesame seed
• 1/4 cup flax seed, ground
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add the raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended.
3. Pour the batter into two 4x 8-inch loaf pans that have been sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake for about 45 minutes until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.
4. The cooler the bread, the easier it is to slice really thin. You can leave it until the next day or pop it in the freezer. Slice the loaves as thin as you can and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet. Try slicing and baking one loaf and popping the other in the freezer for later. Reduce the oven heat to 300°F and bake them for about 15 minutes then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes, until crisp and deep golden. Try not to eat them all at once!

A few notes on substitutions

I've done a fair bit of substituting with these crisps when I make them at home, always with good results.

buttermilk: I don't even know how to SAY buttermilk in spanish, so I usually just use milk soured with a little lemon juice or vinegar.

pumpkin seeds: I've replaced these with sunflower seeds successfully

ground flax: I've also used whole flax.

brown sugar: You can easily make your own brown sugar far less expensively than buying it by adding 2 tbl. of molasses to regular white sugar and mixing thoroughly.

honey: These are equally delicious with molasses instead of honey.

rosemary: I once FORGOT to add the rosemary-- they were still totally addictive. My husband snarfed down about 3 dozen at a sitting last time I made a batch.

I posted the recipe on recipezaar. You can read what others had to say about the recipe there.