Animal Crackers

Forget the boxed version. These homemade animal crackers taste like actual food: buttery, lightly sweet from just two teaspoons of honey, and crispy with a subtle nuttiness from ground oatmeal blended right into the dough.

The oats get ground to a fine powder in the blender before mixing, so they integrate seamlessly into the flour. You will not see or feel oat flakes, but you will taste a toasty, whole-grain flavor that white flour alone cannot deliver. Buttermilk adds a slight tang and helps the dough come together without making it wet.

Roll the dough as thin as you can manage. These are crackers, not cookies. Thin means crispy, and crispy is the whole point.

Kitchen Tips

• Grind the oats until they are truly fine, almost flour-like. Coarse pieces make the dough tear when you roll it thin.
• Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until the mixture looks like coarse sand. This creates the flaky, snappy texture.
• Roll on a lightly floured surface and dip your cookie cutters in flour between each cut. The dough is sticky when thin.
• Watch them closely after 8 minutes. The difference between golden and burnt at this thickness and temperature is very small.
• Bake the leftover scraps too. Reroll once, but after that the dough gets tough.

Variations

• Add ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry ingredients for a warmer, spiced version.
• Swap the honey for maple syrup for a different sweetness profile.
• Dip half of each cooled cracker in melted chocolate for a treat that kids (and adults) will love.