Cracker

These cheesy apple dog treats had our furry friends wagging their tails for a second bite.

This recipe takes the fire cracker formula and Caesar-izes it, bringing in the umami punch of Parmesan and the oil from a jar of anchovies.

With an air fryer, these bagel chips turn out perfectly crunchy and stay whole, not broken to bits in the bag—all the better to hold lots of dip.

These savory Indonesian cookies from cookbook author Lara Lee are perfectly buttery, crumbly, and cheesy. Make a big batch and enjoy them with coffee or tea all week long.

Not feeling the squares in this phyllo bites recipe? Use a pizza cutter to cut crackers into any shape you like!

This crackers recipe features a variety of seeds, and the combination of colors and textures is impressive, but you can use fewer types—just make sure total volume stays the same.

A quick spin in the food processor is all it takes to mix up these rustic whole-wheat crackers.

These dangerously addictive little bites fueled countless 1950s and '60s bridge parties from Greenwood Mississippi, to Greenville, South Carolina, before being rescued from recipe-box oblivion by modern Southern cooks like Martha Hall Foose. And thank goodness. Magic happens when a cracker slowly sops up the fat from smoky, crisping bacon; it transforms into something more akin to piecrust. Unadorned, bacon crackers are pure pork perfection. The addition of a tine bundle of rosemary needles makes for a fancified version, while topping the "belt" of bacon with a bit of brown sugar adds a hint of sweet to the smoke.

When SFMOMA presented the first Francesca Woodman retrospective in the United States in over two decades, I was excited to immerse myself in the work of another influential female photographer whom I studied in college. I love Woodman's juxtaposition of textures, her way of placing soft and vulnerable human forms in withered, deteriorating environments. My plan was to base a dessert on a photograph with this type of contrast. Of all of the images in the show, the one of the artist wearing a Victorian-style floral coat and flowing dress while posing in a crumbling room was my favorite. At the time the Woodman retrospective opened, I had just returned from a vacation in Scandinavia where I would have been happy to live on only Norwegian hardtack, rye bread, soft cheeses, and smoked salmon. The combination of hearty rusticity and soft refinement of these foods were like elements in the Woodman photo: I saw the crumbling room as a cracker made with whole wheat and rye; her flowing skirt as soft cheese; and the pattern on her coat as beautiful, delicate edible flowers. To create a tender cracker with the heartiness of my Norwegian inspiration, I used two types of rustic flour and incorporated the butter using the same technique that's used to make flaky pie dough. A little bit of yogurt added tang and tenderness to the cracker. To slather onto the crackers, I wanted a soft-textured fresh cheese that was simple to make in our tiny kitchen. Ricotta cheese was just the type. A sprinkling of colorful edible flowers from Leah's garden and a touch of black Hawaiian sea salt perfected the rustic-elegant presentation of the Woodman Cheese and Crackers.

A touch of sugar makes these flakey crackers equally as tasty with peanut butter as they are with cheese. Look for a fluted edge cookie cutter to make your crackers look like the classic Ritz crackers.

These one-ingredient lacy cheese crackers are more impressive than any cheese board.

Crackers are one of the easiest things to pop into the kitchen and make. They're simple and impressive. People will do a double-take when they hear that you've shown up at their party and brought homemade crackers. Served with goat cheese, an aged cheddar cheese, or spicy hummus, these crackers shine. Oh! P.S. They're healthy, too.

These crackers use powder made from dried mushrooms ground with a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder.

Here’s a simple formula for making snappy Armenian-style crackers, perfect for breadbaskets, company, and kids. Lavash, though usually called Armenian flatbread, also has Iranian roots and is now eaten throughout the Middle East and around the world. It is similar to the many other Middle Eastern and North African flatbreads known by different names, such as mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), khoubiz or khobz (Arabian), aiysh (Egyptian), kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish), and pideh (Armenian). The main difference between these breads is either how thick or thin the dough is rolled out, or the type of oven in which they are baked (or on which they are baked, as many of these breads are cooked on stones or red-hot pans with a convex surface). Some of the breads form a pocket like a pita bread, and some, like the injera of Ethiopia and Eritrea, are thicker and serve as sponges to soak up spicy sauces. The key to crisp lavash, which is becoming one of the most popular of these flatbread variations, is to roll out the dough paper-thin. The sheet can be cut into crackers in advance or snapped into shards after baking. The shards make a nice presentation when arranged in baskets.

These cookies are surprisingly rich and light at the same time. Served with cheese and grapes, they are the perfect ending to a multicourse dinner.

Once you taste one of these sweet whole wheat crackers, you may never go back to the store-bought variety again. Use them as the base for homemade s’mores, sandwich them with peanut butter, or simply enjoy them on their own.

I love cheese! I would eat a piece of Cheddar cheese over a piece of chocolate cake any day. That probably makes me a little weird, but if you love cheese like I do, you’ll love these cheese straws. My mom used to make them for baby showers and wedding receptions. In 1991, the year my career started to really take off, she made them for me to give as Christmas gifts to everyone who had been so supportive. We laughed about how these cheesy treats were baked in a small kitchen in Monticello, Georgia, and ended up on the desks of some of the biggest movers and shakers in Nashville.

In Piedmont, the home of grissini, these best-of-all breadsticks are scattered on restaurant tables, unpackaged, waiting for someone to sit down and start the inevitable and irresistible munching. They’re usually quite thin, irregular in shape, and very crisp, with a faint sweetness. You can make these stirato, or straight, by following the directions here. Or make them rubata—hand-rolled and irregular—by just rolling the strips of dough after you’ve cut them to make them even thinner. Sprinkle these with toasted sesame seeds, poppy seeds, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, or sea salt before baking if you like, though it’s rarely done in their homeland.