Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, 150g
Nothing in this has any opinion of its own. For once, that is the purchase. Flame baking blisters the sheet so it shatters rather than bends, which makes it the right thing beside a bowl of soup or under something strongly flavoured. Eaten by itself it is close to nothing, so buy it for what you put with it.
Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, in brief.
Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers is a 150g pack of unleavened flatbread crackers, flour and water baked fast and hot with nothing to raise them.
The blistered surface is what high heat does to a thin dough, and it is why this tastes of baked crust rather than of nothing.
Matzo is flour and water baked fast and hot with nothing to raise it, a tradition that runs through Jewish cooking and is most widely known from Passover.
The flame-baked part of the name points at the method rather than the recipe. When a thin dough meets a very high heat, the water in it turns to steam almost instantly, lifting the surface into blisters before the sheet has time to set flat. Those blisters are what give a matzo its uneven, scorched map of light and dark patches, and they are also what give it that particular brittle shatter instead of the even snap of a moulded cracker. It is the oldest trick in baking and it is still the reason this cracker tastes of something rather than nothing.
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. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Rakusen's
Rakusen's is a long-standing British matzo name, and elsewhere in our range its own product naming carries the words of Yorkshire, which is the brand telling you where it comes from rather than us inferring it. That is heritage and positioning. It is not a statement about where this particular pack was baked, which mill supplied the flour or what else runs on the same line, none of which we know.
That matters more here than on most products, because matzo is a food with religious certification attached to it in many cases. Both are printed on the pack in front of you, and for this category that is the only source worth trusting.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: 150g.
- The format, not the flavour: what you are buying is an unleavened, high-heat-baked flatbread cracker. There is no yeast lift, no fat-rich crumb and no seasoning doing the work.
- What it is not: not a cream cracker, not a crispbread and not a water biscuit. It is drier and more brittle than any of them, and it is the only one of the four with a tradition behind it.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Do not dunk it: a matzo has no fat and almost no structure once wet. It goes from brittle to sodden in about a second, and there is no good stage in between.
- Top it with something soft and fatty: cream cheese, butter, avocado, a soft goat's cheese. The cracker supplies the structure and the topping supplies everything else.
- Storage: airtight and dry, and more urgently than for most crackers. A thin unleavened sheet takes up humidity fast and loses its shatter first.
- Refresh it: three or four minutes in a low oven brings a slightly soft matzo back. It works better here than on any coated biscuit because there is nothing to melt.
- Best with: a topping, a plate, and hands rather than a saucer. It is not a biscuit for a delicate moment.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, 150g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Rakusen's
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
A matzo is a carrier, so the question is less what to drink with it and more what to put on it. That said, it has a quiet cereal flavour of its own and a very dry finish, and both of those interact with a hot drink in ways worth knowing before you build a plate.
The Tea Break
The Coffee Break
Made with this tea
Cream Cheese, Cucumber and Dill
How to make Cream Cheese, Cucumber and Dill with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- 6 Rakusen's matzo crackers
- 150g full fat cream cheese
- Half a cucumber, sliced thin
- A small handful of dill
- Flaky salt and black pepper
- Beat the cream cheese with a fork for a few seconds so it spreads without cracking the sheet.
- Spread it thickly. A thin scraping leaves the cracker dry, and dryness is the only fault this product has.
- Layer the cucumber, then the dill, then salt and a good grind of pepper.
- Assemble at the table rather than in advance. Ten minutes on a plate is enough to soften the base.
What you'll end up with: The pairing this cracker is built for. The matzo brings structure and shatter, the cheese brings everything the bake deliberately left out.
Matzo Brei, Savoury or Sweet
How to make Matzo Brei, Savoury or Sweet with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- 4 Rakusen's matzo crackers, broken up
- 3 eggs, beaten
- A knob of butter or a little oil
- Salt and pepper, or cinnamon and sugar
- Break the crackers into pieces the size of a stamp and run them briefly under warm water until they bend rather than snap.
- Drain them properly and fold them through the beaten egg with your seasoning of choice.
- Fry in butter over a medium heat, turning in large pieces, until set and browned at the edges.
- Serve straight from the pan, savoury with black pepper or sweet with cinnamon.
What you'll end up with: A traditional dish somewhere between an omelette and French toast, and the best possible use for the bottom of a pack that has gone slightly soft.
The Soup Cracker
How to make The Soup Cracker with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- 4 Rakusen's matzo crackers
- 2 bowls of chicken, tomato or lentil soup
- Butter, optional
- Parsley or chives
- Butter the crackers first if the soup is a thin one. The fat slows the moment they give way.
- Break them over the bowl rather than into it, so the pieces sit on the surface.
- Eat quickly. This cracker has no reserve of structure and about a minute is the working window.
- Keep the rest of the pack away from the steam while you do it.
What you'll end up with: The crunch a bowl of soup usually lacks, on the understanding that it is a short-lived crunch. Buttering first is the trick that buys you the extra minute.
Chopped Salad Board
How to make Chopped Salad Board with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- 10 Rakusen's matzo crackers
- 300g tomatoes, cucumber and spring onion, chopped fine
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 lemon
- Olive oil, salt and pepper
- Chop everything small and dress it with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper twenty minutes before you eat.
- Drain the salad in a sieve just before serving. Wet salad and a dry cracker is the one combination to avoid.
- Mash the avocado roughly with more lemon and spread it on the crackers as a barrier layer.
- Spoon the salad on at the table, one cracker at a time.
What you'll end up with: A light plate that works because the cracker carries no flavour of its own. The avocado layer is doing structural work, not decorative work.
Chocolate Matzo Brittle
How to make Chocolate Matzo Brittle with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- 6 Rakusen's matzo crackers
- 200g dark chocolate
- 100g butter
- 100g soft brown sugar
- Flaky salt
- Line a baking tray and cover it with the crackers, trimming them to fit in a single layer.
- Boil the butter and sugar together for three minutes until it darkens, then pour it over and spread it thin.
- Bake at 180C for eight minutes, then scatter the chocolate over the hot surface and spread it as it melts.
- Salt the top, chill until set hard, then break it into shards.
What you'll end up with: The best-known sweet use for a matzo, and it works because the cracker is plain. A flavoured base would muddle the caramel and the chocolate.
The Four Minute Revival
How to make The Four Minute Revival with Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers.
- Any matzo crackers that have gone soft
- An oven at 150C
- Three to four minutes
- Spread the crackers in a single layer on a tray, not overlapping.
- Heat at 150C for three to four minutes. You are driving off moisture, not browning them further.
- Cool them flat on a rack. A warm sheet is still slightly pliable and sets to whatever shape you leave it in.
- Store the rest airtight, and away from the kettle, which is where most packs are lost.
What you'll end up with: The shatter back. This works better on matzo than on anything else in the range because there is no coating to melt and no fat to turn greasy.
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100g, as published | Per 100g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 357 kcal |
| Fat | 1g |
| of which saturates | 0.2g |
| Carbohydrate | 79g |
| of which sugars | 2.8g |
| Fibre | 4.3g |
| Protein | 10g |
| Salt | 0g |
Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat (gluten). Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: Wheat Flour (Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamine), Water.
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Unleavened wheat sheet | the body | The whole cracker. A dough with nothing in it to raise it, rolled thin and baked, which is why the result is dense in flavour terms and almost weightless in the hand. |
| High-heat bake | the method | Not an ingredient but the thing that makes the product. Fast, fierce heat turns the water in a thin dough to steam before the sheet can set, lifting blisters and scorching them, which is where the toasted crust flavour and the uneven map of light and dark patches come from. |
| Blister char | background | A faint toasted bitterness at the darkened points, the difference between baked and browned. It is the only complication in an otherwise plain flavour and it is the reason this reads as food rather than as filler. |
Pack: Best before the date printed on the pack, and best kept airtight once opened.
Characterising components shown; the full ingredient declaration, the nutrition panel, the cracker count, the inner packaging arrangement and all certification marks are printed on the current UK pack. That applies with particular force to kosher certification and Passover suitability, which are matters for the label and not for this page.
Sourcing & blend. Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, 150g comes from a long-standing British matzo name, one whose own product naming elsewhere in our range carries the words of Yorkshire. The pack you receive is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different specification.
What is in Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, 150g:
- In: unleavened flatbread crackers, 150g to the sealed pack, baked fast at high heat with no raising agent and no coating.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Rakusen's Flame Baked Matzo Crackers, 150g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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