Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g
Rosemary decides this one, and it decides it before the wheat gets a word in. The herb's oils survive a hot oven where a soft leaf would not, so it leads on opening and it is still there after the topping has gone. Underneath it the slow ferment does the structural job, giving the herb something solid to stand on rather than letting it read as a garnish scattered over something thin. That leaves a narrow but real brief. Honey is the surprising one and the best of them, because resin needs something round to land on, and quince or a fig chutney works for the same reason. Smoked salmon does not; smoke and rosemary argue, and neither gives way. If a pack softens, break it into a tomato or white bean soup, where rosemary already belongs. Wheat sourdough, so it carries gluten and cannot go on a coeliac table. It scores cooler than the plain version, and that is the split talking rather than a fault in the bake.
Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, in brief.
Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers is the seasoned member of the Peter's Yard range, ninety grams to the pack, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the smartest single pack in the range for a board.
Two things pull against each other in it: the slow sourdough ferment underneath, and rosemary and sea salt on top assertive enough to lead. The plain version can be eaten undressed; this one very nearly has to be, and whatever goes on it needs to answer back. It is a wheat sourdough cracker, not suitable for a coeliac diet.
Two things are happening in this cracker and they pull in opposite directions. Underneath is the same slow sourdough ferment the brand is built on, which leaves a faint lactic tang and a savoury depth that a fast yeasted dough never develops. On top is rosemary and sea salt, which are assertive, resinous and salty enough to be the first thing you taste. The ferment is the reason a plain Peter's Yard cracker can be eaten undressed; the seasoning here means this one very nearly has to be. That is not a criticism, it is a job description, and it decides everything about what to put on it and what to drink beside it.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Which cheeses hold up is in the Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Peter's Yard
Peter's Yard is a British maker of Swedish-style sourdough crispbread, and the range is built on one idea rather than on breadth. The company uses crispbread, cracker and flatbread as names for different formats, and the current pack is what tells you which one you have. What is consistent across all of them is that the bake is the point, and it is a slower process than a mass-market cracker line requires.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: ninety grams.
- Contains gluten: it is a wheat sourdough cracker and is not suitable for a coeliac diet.
- What it is not: not a neutral base, not a workhorse for soup, and not the cracker to buy if the thing going on top is delicate. Rosemary does not step aside for anybody.
Ideal Serving Conditions
Rosemary is a resinous herb and its oils carry a long way, which is the single fact that governs how this cracker should be used. It will not sit politely underneath something subtle, and anything you put on it has to be able to answer back.
The Cheeseboard Serve
- Go strong or go plain: an aged cheddar, a hard sheep's cheese or a blue will hold their own against rosemary. A young goat's cheese or a mild brie will simply disappear underneath it.
- No butter: it flattens the tang and smothers the herb at the same time. Butter belongs on the plainest crackers, where there is empty space for it.
- Something sweet and sharp alongside: quince paste, a fig chutney or a spoonful of honey. Rosemary with honey is a very old pairing and it works here for the same reason it works on focaccia.
- Put fewer out than you think: these are assertive enough that three or four on a board do more than a pile of them.
The Everyday Serve
- With soup, but pick the soup: tomato, white bean, lentil or anything with olive oil in it. Not a delicate chicken broth, which rosemary will walk straight over.
- Broken into a salad: the Mediterranean trick, where the pieces take the place of croutons and the rosemary does the seasoning for the whole bowl.
- Not with smoked fish: rosemary and smoke fight rather than agree. The plain original is the one for that plate.
Getting It Right with a Hot Drink
- Pairing: a strong black tea or a plain black coffee. You want something with enough tannin or bitterness to clear a resinous herb off the palate between bites.
- Also good: a green tea, the one delicate cup that can handle this cracker, because its own grassy edge runs alongside rosemary rather than against it.
- Avoid: sweetened milky coffees, dessert teas and fruit infusions. Sugar against a salty resinous cracker makes both read oddly.
- Dunking: no. It is savoury, dry, salted and worth tasting on its own.
- Storage: cool, dry, dark and sealed the day you open it. A soft rosemary cracker is a sad object.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Peter's Yard
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g leads with rosemary, so every build here is really a question of what can answer it. Five below cover the board, the honey plate, a soup that can take it, the salad that rescues a soft pack, and the one thing not to do with it.
Made with this tea
The Board, Built Properly
How to make The Board, Built Properly with Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers.
- 8 Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt crackers
- A strong aged cheddar or a hard sheep's cheese
- A blue cheese
- Quince paste
- Put out three or four crackers per person rather than a pile. They are assertive enough that a few do more work than many.
- Choose cheeses that can answer rosemary: aged, hard or blue. A young goat's cheese or a mild brie will vanish underneath it.
- Cut the cheese thinner than you would for a neutral cracker. The base has a voice here and a thick slice buries it.
- Skip the butter entirely. It flattens the tang and smothers the herb at the same time.
What you'll end up with: A board where the cracker is part of the eating rather than a delivery system.
Rosemary and Honey
How to make Rosemary and Honey with Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers.
- 6 Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt crackers
- A soft fresh cheese, ricotta or curd
- Runny honey
- Black pepper
- Spread the soft cheese thinly. It is there to carry the honey, not to compete.
- Drizzle honey over, more than feels sensible. Rosemary needs something round to land on and honey is the oldest answer to it.
- Grind black pepper over the top and eat immediately.
- Do not build these ahead. Honey and a wet cheese soften a cracker within minutes.
What you'll end up with: The one sweet build this cracker does properly, and a pairing old enough to predate anyone selling either ingredient.
The Soup That Can Take It
How to make The Soup That Can Take It with Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers.
- 6 Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt crackers
- A tomato, white bean or lentil soup
- Good olive oil
- Black pepper
- Pick the soup deliberately: tomato, white bean, lentil, anything with olive oil in it. Rosemary belongs in that family.
- Avoid a delicate chicken broth or a clear consomme, which the herb will walk straight over.
- Under-season the soup slightly and let the crackers supply the salt at the table.
- Serve them beside the bowl rather than crumbled in, so they keep their snap to the last spoonful.
What you'll end up with: A lunch where the cracker is doing the seasoning for the whole plate, which is the easiest way to make a plain soup taste finished.
Broken Into a Salad
How to make Broken Into a Salad with Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers.
- A soft or broken pack of the crackers
- Ripe tomatoes
- Cucumber and red onion
- Olive oil and red wine vinegar
- Break the crackers into rough pieces rather than crumbs. This is the best use for a pack that has gone soft in the cupboard.
- Dress the tomatoes, cucumber and onion first and let them sit for five minutes so they give up some juice.
- Fold the cracker pieces through at the last moment, so some stay crisp and some take up the dressing.
- Add no extra herbs. The rosemary in the crackers is seasoning the whole bowl.
What you'll end up with: Something close to a fattoush, and the reason a soft pack of these is never wasted.
The Plate Not To Build
How to make The Plate Not To Build with Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers.
- Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt crackers
- Smoked salmon, which is the problem
- Soft cheese
- Lemon
- Notice what happens: rosemary and smoke are both assertive and neither gives way, so the plate tastes crowded rather than layered.
- Swap the base for the plain Peter's Yard original, which has the same ferment and none of the herb.
- Keep the lemon and the soft cheese exactly as they were. Those were never the problem.
- Use the rosemary crackers for the cheese course later in the same meal instead.
What you'll end up with: The one combination we would talk you out of, written down so you do not have to find it out over a packet of smoked salmon.
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100g, as published | Per 100g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 411 kcal |
| Fat | 9.2g |
| of which saturates | 0.7g |
| Carbohydrate | 67g |
| of which sugars | 3.2g |
| Fibre | 7.7g |
| Protein | 11g |
| Salt | 2g |
Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat and rye (gluten). Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: Wheat flour (Wheat flour, Calcium, Iron, Thiamin, Niacin), rye flour, sourdough 21% (rye flour, water), rapeseed oil, sea salt (Cornish) 1%, muscovado sugar, dried rosemary leaves 0.5%, dried thyme leaves, black pepper.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemary | named on the front of the pack; quantity not stated | The loudest thing in the cracker. A resinous, piney herb whose oils carry a long way, which is why it arrives before the wheat and lingers longest on the finish. It is also why a delicate topping has no chance on this base. |
Pack: Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g; sourdough crackers seasoned with rosemary and sea salt, from the Peter's Yard range of Swedish-style sourdough bakes. Store cool, dry, dark and sealed the day the pack is opened, and move the crackers to a rigid tin if they are not going to be eaten within a few days. Read the net weight, the cracker count, the ingredient list, the nutrition panel, the allergen advice and the best-before date off the current UK pack.
Characterising components shown. Sourdough is treated throughout as a description of how the dough is raised, never as a certification or a health claim. The one thing stated without hedging is that it contains gluten, because a wheat sourdough cracker is not suitable for a coeliac diet and the fail-safe direction is the honest one. The sensory placements are our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description; we have held no tastings and hold no brand specification sheets.
Sourcing & blend. Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g is made by Peter's Yard, a British maker of Swedish-style sourdough crispbread whose range is built on one idea rather than on breadth. The company uses crispbread, cracker and flatbread as names for different formats and the current pack is what tells you which one you have, so we do not assume that two names in the range mean the same thing inside.
What's in Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g, and what isn't:
- In: sourdough crackers seasoned with rosemary and sea salt, 90g to the pack, both seasonings named by the brand on the front.
- Contains gluten: a wheat sourdough cracker, not suitable for a coeliac diet. That is the one dietary statement we make and we make it in the cautious direction.
- No health or digestive claim: sourdough attracts a good deal of loose talk and we add none of it. No nutritional, digestive or dietary benefit of any kind is claimed.
- Not a neutral base: rosemary leads. Anything delicate going on top will be lost, which is the most common mistake made with this pack.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Peter's Yard Rosemary & Sea Salt Sourdough Crackers, 90g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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