Millet is a wonderful grain to have in your cupboard. It’s quick to cook, gluten and lectin free, easy to digest and tasty.

I use it in many ways in my kitchen; here I’m going to show you how I make airy, sourdough millet crackers. If you’re inspired to take millet further in your kitchen, you can read about additional ways I use it here.

I’ve been making crackers out of fermented millet for over a decade. They are wonderful hot from the oven spread with butter. They are so simple – they use just millet flour (I grind mine myself using my Mockmill), sourdough starter, water and salt.

I’d got used to them always being flat and dense. But then, last week, I stumbled upon just the right batter consistency to trap sourdough gases, leaving the resulting cracker airy and light. It was a revelation and my family loved it. Here’s how you can replicate in your kitchen:

Sourdough Millet Crackers

Ingredients (for 12 crackers):

300g millet flour (you can buy this or grind it, very finely, yourself)

45g sourdough starter (you can use a millet starter to make the crackers gluten-free)

c. 180g water

Optional: coarse sea salt

Method:

1. Mix the sourdough starter into 130g of the water and stir well.

2. Measure the flour into a bowl (ideally glass so you can see the fermentation) and slowly add starter/water, mixing well. You want to aim for a thick batter, one that will hold sourdough gases as the batter ferments. Add extra water, up to or slightly above the 180g total that I use for my cracker batter.

3. Cover the bowl and leave on your counter to ferment for at least 12 hours. I leave mine 24 hours. The longer you leave it, the more sour the resulting crackers will be.

4. When you return to the batter it should be light and airy (if you used a glass bowl you should be able to see bubbles around the side). If you don’t see bubbles and you know your sourdough starter is good, it will be because your batter is too think or too thin. You can continue making the crackers, but they may not come out airy. To remedy for future bakings, make a note of how much water you used and adjust it next time.

5. Preheat your oven to 175°C.

6. Prepare two baking trays/sheets by greasing them or lining them with greaseproof/parchment paper.

7. Disturbing it as minimally as possible, carefully spoon out cracker-sized blobs of the batter (which should remind you of very loose scrambled egg) and gently place them onto your baking tray avoiding spreading or flattening them. Do this until you have finished the batter – you should have twelve crackers. Sprinkle a dash of coarse sea salt on the top of each one.

8. Bake the crackers at 175°C for 20 to 25 minutes.

Once baked, remove them to a cooling rack or, as we do straight to your plate! These are best eaten immediately (expect them to be crumbly on top) so I usually only make as many as we are going to eat but they will last a day or two in an airtight container and can be toasted to bring them back to life!