Make your own graham crackers

This is one of my favorite things to make, hands down, which is interesting because I loathe rolling dough. Funny how life works out sometimes. Graham crackers factor into my employee appreciation baking bonanza as a sort of secret ingredient, for a treat coming later in the week.

I brought these to a friend’s house for a weekly dinner, and we made s’mores. Her roommate said that for the first time ever her favorite part of a s’more was the graham cracker! How many people say that after taking a bite of a s’more? People are amazed that they taste like, or better, than “real” graham crackers. The work is pretty minimal for fantastic results, and I promise you’ll eat more than you plan to when you’re finished baking. It might just be me, a girl who can polish off a box of graham crackers like it’s a glass of water, but I have a funny feeling you’ll understand what I mean when you make them.

Unfortunately, I wrote this recipe down early last year, on a random piece of scrap paper, without taking note of the source. If you see this recipe elsewhere, you know to give credit to them, where it’s due. At the Post Punk Kitchen, there’s a recipe for vegan graham crackers that I’ve meaning to try as well.

Graham Crackers

Those crackers were gone about three minutes after my taking this picture. No exaggeration.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour (or graham flour)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup margarine, or softened butter

½ packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup milk

(a simple cinnamon sugar mixture for dusting, if desired)

Method:

1. Sift together the two flours and leavening agents.

2. Cream the butter and brown sugar until light colored and fluffy, and in a bowl large enough for all the ingredients.

3. Combine the milk and vanilla.

4. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk mixture, making sure to begin and end with the flour mixture, stirring well after each addition.

5. Wrap dough in plastic, or simply cover it, and refrigerate it over night.

(Intermission. Cue Jeopardy music.)

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line your baking sheets with parchment (if you aren’t using parchment, keep the sheets ungreased).

7. Making sure your surface is well floured, roll out one quarter of the chilled dough at a time. My recipe says to roll it out into a rectangle, but I’m neither that talented nor that patient. So I just rolled it out to about a quarter of an inch thick (don’t bake them much thicker than that, otherwise they won’t be crunchy like the “real deal”), cut out some rectangles and then baked the random pieces.

8. Using a knife, make indentations in the rectangles where you want the graham crackers to break off after baking.

9. Before baking, prick the pieces with a fork, either decoratively or helter skelter. The latter is much more fun.

10. If you choose, you can sprinkle the dough with cinnamon sugar before baking.

11. Bake for 13-15 minutes in a preheated oven. Keep an eye on them, as they burn quickly. When they are browned around the edges and the surfaces look dry, they are probably done.

12. Let cool on the sheet for a few minutes before moving them to wire racks to cool completely.