Homemade Graham Crackers

Rich, buttery homemade graham crackers are delicious for snacking and make exceptional graham cracker crusts for pies and cheesecakes. Bake them as adorable little crackers or as one giant sheet for the easiest, most flavorful crumb crust ever.

Course Cookies and Bars

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 25

Total Time 1 30

Servings Cookies

Calories 59kcal

Author Jennifer Field

Equipment

Ingredients

181 grams all purpose flour 6.4 oz or 1 1/2 cups
170 grams whole wheat flour 6 oz or 1 1/2 cups
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon kosher salt or to taste
8 oz butter 2 sticks, softened
5 oz dark brown sugar (you can use light, if that's what you have)
2 Tablespoon honey

Option for Cinnamon Graham Crackers

2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

Instructions

Place two oven racks in the top and bottom thirds of your oven. Heat to 350°F / 177°C.
In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together dry ingredients.
Cream softened butter, brown sugar, and honey until smooth. It doesn't need to be light and fluffy. Just smooth.
Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until the dough just comes together. It may look dry and crumbly. Squeeze some of the dough together. It should compact and hold together much like pie crust.
Remove from mixer and divide the mixture between 2 half-sheets of parchment paper.
Use the parchment and your hands to square up and compact the dough into a rough rectangle.
If the dough seems very sticky while you are shaping it, refrigerate it on a sheet tray for about an hour before rolling.
Place another piece of parchment over one half of the dough and roll out to a thickness of about 1/8" (3mm). You'll have to keep peeling off the top piece of parchment as it will wrinkle as you roll. It's fine. Just smooth it out, replace it, and keep rolling. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
Optional: Whisk together 2 Tablespoons sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Use a small sifter to give your crackers a light dusting. Press the sugar in by rolling your rolling pin lightly over the dough. Brush off excess cinnamon sugar.
Either leave as large sheets for crumbling or score into crackers with a pizza wheel and prick with the tines of a fork to approximate the look of store bought Graham crackers.
Bake for 20-24 minutes, rotating the pans 180 degrees and switching racks halfway through baking. The cookies will be a bit soft straight from the oven, so it's easy to go over your score marks again (if you made them) with a pizza wheel. They should crisp up upon cooling. If they are still a bit soft, bake an additional 5 minutes or so.
Allow to cool completely, then break the cookies apart or just crumble them or whir them in a food processor to make crumbs.

Notes

Storing

Your Grahams will last in a sealed container at room temperature for about a week. If they do start to soften, you can refresh them in a 350F for 2-3 minutes. Cookies will re-crisp as they cool.

Freezing

If you'd like, you can freeze the sheeted dough and save to bake some other time. Well wrapped, it will be fine for a month or even two.

To Make a Graham Cracker Crust

To make your Graham crust, take some graham crumbs (usually 1 1/2-2 cups is sufficient for a 9" crust) and mix them with 2-3 Tablespoons of butter and the optional ground nuts until it just holds together. Then, press it into the pie pan and bake at 350 degrees, F, for about 8-10 minutes to set the crust.

Variations

Try experimenting with adding different spices. They're your cookies, and wouldn't ginger Grahams be delicious? Or pumpkin spice?

You can also make a more neutral Graham cracker by leaving out the spices altogether. In that case, add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla when creaming the butter, brown sugar, and honey.

Nutrition