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Circle versus Square: How the Shape of Saltine Crackers Affects Recipes

We bought a box of the new round Premium saltines and weighed them alongside the old square crackers and found that the round crackers weigh about 12 percent less.

We often use saltines in recipes, frequently to make panades, so we were eager to answer this question. We bought a box of the new round Premium saltines and weighed them alongside the old square crackers and found that the round crackers weigh about 12 percent less. The same conversion held true when we crushed the crackers and measured them by volume. It took about 18 round crackers to make up the same volume as 16 square crackers. We tested our 12 percent conversion factor in recipes for meatloaf and meatballs, and tasters couldn’t distinguish them from the original dishes.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The new round Premium saltines are about 12 percent smaller than the square ones. Use one extra round cracker for every eight square crackers in the recipe.

Rounding off the corners made Premium saltines about 12 percent smaller.

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