Tasty Tuesday: Graham Crackers

Homemade graham crackers? Yes, it's true!

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour                                 1 large egg

1 cup all-purpose flour                                   1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup  sugar                                                1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon salt                                            2 to 3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon                                     additional milk for glaze
1 teaspoon baking powder                             cinnamon-sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. In a separate bowl, beat egg till light, then add oil, honey and 2 tablespoons milk. Stir into dry ingredients until you have a fairly stiff dough, adding additional milk if necessary. Wrap dough in waxed paper and chill until firm, about 1 hour.

2. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently until it holds together. Roll dough out till it's about 1/16-inch thick; make sure rolling surface is well-floured, or you'll have trouble transferring crackers to baking sheet. Preheat your oven to 375°F.

3. Cut dough into 3-inch squares, prick each square several times with a fork, and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Brush the tops with milk, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar if you're so inclined, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until crackers are lightly browned. Remove crackers from oven, transfer to a wire cooling rack, and cool completely. Makes about 2 dozen graham crackers. 

These crackers don't included ingredients like soy lecithin, malted cereal syrup, or sulfite and enzymes.

Apparently, they don't included milk either, cause it's not in the picture.

Measure your sugar, making sure to spill some on the counter.

Don't forget to clean up your mess!

Squeeze the honey into a measuring cup.

Squeeze the honey into your mouth.

He told me, "It doesn't taste like it does in the movies."

That didn't stop him from drinking half the bottle.

Mix some of the dry ingredients into the wet.

At this point, Jake said, "It doesn't look like it would taste delicious."

Continue mixing the dough. 

Look at that muscle action! Baking is strenuous work.

Taste the dough.

Eat more dough.

Keep shoveling dough into your mouth until your mom kicks you out of the kitchen.

Plop the dough onto wax paper. Wrap it up and toss it in the fridge.

This is a very active recipe. Please, consult your doctor before starting this fitness program.

After it's chilled roll it out with LOTS of flour. We don't want another repeat of the noodles glued to the counter, do we???

We ended up with glued dough anyway . . . again. I forgot the tip about small batches. Some people never learn. 

Fool me once, shame on you, Dough! Fool me twice, shame on me.

Use a ruler to measure the thickness of your dough.

Cut out some fun shapes . . .

Peirce the pieces with a fork . . .

Brush on some milk . . . .

. . . and sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar to your heart's content.

I eventually gave up with trying to pry the dough from its permanent home on the counter while still attempting to maintain the shape of each cracker. We just rolled the dough directly on the cookie sheet. Guess what? No sticking! The second half we didn't even bother cutting, but made one giant 10" graham cracker.

I put the cookie sheets in the oven and set the timer for the minimum bake time of 15 minutes. I then proceeded to make dinner. 

Peel.

Cut.

Mix.

Turn around approximately 14 minutes later and see blackened graham crackers.

Mmm, appetizing. I'm thinking about calling them chocolate graham crackers. That's why they're so dark. Think anyone will buy it?

They really don't taste bad. Quite the compliment, I know. Not all of them came out quite this dark though. The kids have been eating them and seem to like them. 

Of course, we had to have a fire last night to make s'mores and try out our homemade crackers.

Jake likes to catch the marshmallows on fire just to watch them burn. He even likes the burnt taste. Yech. I've explained art of marshmallow roasting. This is not it. This poor marshmallow will forever bear the shame of these burn marks scarring its surface.

How sad.

It's a good thing it was eaten so it could quickly forget its misery.

These graham crackers are not as light and fluffy as store bought ones. These are crisp and crunchy. They do have a good flavor, though I still prefer Honey Maid. It was fun making them, but I'm sure we'll stick with coupons and sales instead of flour and a rolling pin. 

And it did give us an excuse to sit by the fire as a family and roast burn some marshmallows.