Homemade Graham Crackers Recipe
Homemade graham crackers are fresher and tastier than store-bought ones and you can make them any shape that you like! Keep some on hand for an easy from-scratch snack!
It’s nice to have a homemade graham cracker recipe on hand for pie crusts, s’mores (or s’mores cupcakes), and snacking. People inherently understand the value of a homemade chocolate chip cookie or brownies made from scratch. However, even seasoned bakers seem to turn to a box rather than a homemade graham cracker recipe. Although, not as simple as buying a box, this graham cracker recipe is fresher than the boxed variety, slightly less sweet, easy to make, and you can make the graham crackers in any shape you like!
Homemade Graham Cracker Recipe
I got the graham cracker recipe from Free Range Living. She got the recipe from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book [paid link].
I am reprinting the recipe below along with all of my baking notes.
Graham Crackers Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 cup honey Some graham crackers use half honey and half molasses. You might consider trying that as a variation.
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons water
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cup graham flour If you can't get ahold of graham flour, there are plenty of graham cracker recipes that use regular whole wheat flour such as this graham cracker recipe from Baking Bites. You may also be able to directly substitute whole wheat flour in this recipe, but I haven't tested it and I make no promises.
- 3/4 C all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Combine the butter, egg and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Stir in the honey and blend.
- Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the butter mixture.
- Add the salt, graham flour, and all-purpose flour to the mixture and blend thoroughly. The dough should hold together and be manageable. If it is too "tacky" add a little more graham flour.
- Liberally dust a surface with graham flour and roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. For convenience in handling, cut the rolled dough into three or four sections that will fit on your cookie sheet. (To make my life easier, line cookie sheets with parchment paper and roll the dough directly on the cookie sheets. That way you don't need to worry about the dough breaking when you lift it onto a cookie sheet.)
- With a knife, score the dough, without cutting through, into 2 1/2 inch squares. (Boring! Since your graham crackers are not store-bought, they don't have to be square. Use your cookie cutters to make them any shape you want!)
- Prick each square a few times with the tines of a fork. (I did this because those little pricks do make them look like graham crackers, whatever shape they are.)
- Using a spatula, place the sections of scored cracker dough on an ungreased cookie sheet. (I didn't have to do this since I rolled right on the cookie sheet.)
- Bake on the first side for 8 minutes, then turn the cracker over and bake for another 6 or 7 minutes. (Cheryl of Free Range Living said that she found that flipping wasn't necessary. I agree. I left out the flip step.)
- Remove from the oven and cool on racks. (They weren't quite crispy when I removed them. However, they hardened up as soon as they cooled.)
Nutrition
Graham Crackers Destroy Your Sex Drive?
Maybe graham crackers are typically served to kids because somewhere in our collective memory we know that graham crackers are wholesome and we worry that graham isn’t good for sex?
Graham flour and later graham crackers were created by the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham.
He had some great ideas…
- We should eat foods high in fiber and with whole grains.
- Eating pure foods on a regular basis results in a long, healthy life.
and some less great ones…
- If food sits in the stomach for too long, it overstimulates the organs and causes sexual arousal.
- Rich, fatty foods only increase sexual urges.
Graham invented graham flour in the 1830s. It’s a form of whole wheat flour that has a slightly coarser grind. It’s higher in fiber than white flour and according to Graham, digests faster so as not to subject people to the desires of the flesh. This flour led to to the graham cracker: The Anti-Sex cracker. Now there’s a marketing campaign slogan if I ever heard one.
Graham crackers were originally made with 100% graham flour. Nowadays as you saw in the recipe in this post, they are typically a mix of graham or regular whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour.
I wonder what Graham would think of my Better than Sex Chocolate cupcakes?
Graham Crackers and Dieting
As far as dessert snacks go, graham crackers are not that bad for you.
When I was a kid, I used to put graham crackers in my cereal bowl every morning. I loved eating them all soggy with milk. (FYI – I strongly recommend dunking graham crackers in milk. Mmmmm.)
Anyway, one day I decided I needed to lose weight and I decided the way to diet was to stop putting graham crackers in my cereal. I don’t recall if that reduction in food intake caused any weight loss, but I do wonder if I am the only one to ever go on a diet that only involved refraining from graham crackers.
Loading comments...