Healthy Whole Wheat Graham Crackers

Homemade whole wheat graham crackers—just in time for summer s'mores! These healthy graham crackers will take the classic summer treat and turn it up a notch.

I love graham crackers, to me they’re darn near perfection, so I decided not to mess with them too much. I kept the flavors simple using graham flour (which is completely whole-grain, did you know that?! I’ll jabber about that later for those who are interested), honey, and a pinch of cinnamon. They’re super easy to whip up and bake into crisp, golden crackers. I think I ate a whole batch of these alone in one week.

How do you make whole wheat graham crackers? 

Homemade graham crackers are much easier than they look. The rundown goes something like this:

Step 1: 

Pulse the dry ingredients together in a food processor (flours, sugar, baking powder and soda, salt and cinnamon). 

Step 2:

Scatter chilled butter over top of flour (like you would if you were making a pie dough) and process until mixture resembled a coarse cornmeal. 

Step 3:

Add liquid ingredients (honey, milk and vanilla) to flour-butter mixture and process until a dough comes together. 

Step 4: 

Divide dough in half. Roll dough halves into rectangles, cut, dock and transfer to baking sheet.

Do all of the rolling, cutting and docking on a piece of parchment. Then simply transfer parchment paper to a baking sheet and bake! Break crackers apart once they have baked and cooled completely. 

Step 5:

Bake, cool, break apart and enjoy! 

Enjoy these whole wheat graham crackers as is, with a tall glass of milk, or as apart of a s'mores spread!

I've got a few fun s'more ideas or make completely homemade s'mores by toasting up these homemade marshmallows. 

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Coconut Sugar in Baking

Coconut sugar is a natural sweetener that does really well in baking. It has a toasty/nutty flavor and can easily stand in for cane sugar. The one thing to keep in mind about coconut sugar in baking is that it melts much slower than regular sugar does. This might not seem like a big deal, but in the end it can really have an impact on the outcome of your baked goods. 

Unground coconut sugar can have as minimal effect as a speckled look (no biggy) to as big of an effect as creating crumbly cookies (no thanks). For this recipe, and many others that use coconut sugar, I recommend grinding it for a few seconds in a spice grinder. I know it can be a pain, so if you cook/bake a lot with coconut sugar, I recommend grinding it all in one fell swoop—yes your whole bag—that way then you want to bake with it, that step is already done! 

 If you don't want to use coconut sugar, you can use ½ cup regular sugar instead (skip the grinding process)

About Graham Flour

I had no idea graham flour was whole wheat. Maybe I’m naive, but within my 4 years of culinary science education and the last few years of developing recipes for magazines, I’ve never used graham flour or known it was whole-grain. I feel like my world has been turned upside down.

Of all whole wheat flours, graham flour is the most coarsely stone-ground of them all. Graham flour has larger, more flaky particles while other whole wheat flours are stone-ground or steel-rolled into fine, powdery particles.

Because of this, graham flour is better suited for cracker or crisp cookie recipes, while regular whole wheat flour is better suited for pancakes and breads. The reason for this is largely due to the ability of gluten development between the two flours.

Not to get all science-y, but if you’re interested, gluten development occurs in the endosperm of the flour, not in the germ or bran. The germ contains the protein of wheat while the sharp-edged bran contains the fiber.

When a coarsely milled whole-wheat flour (containing all three parts of the grain) is used in a baked good that relies on gluten development (i.e. bread) the coarsely ground sharp-edged bran cuts through the gluten strands, destroying the structure. Hence why a more finely ground flour is better for breads and more coarsely ground flour works well for cookies and crackers.

Make sure to tag me @ZESTFULKITCHEN ON INSTAGRAM or comment below if you make this Whole Grain Graham Crackers. 

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