This post is for all of you who have bought gf graham crackers at the store; you pay double what regular grahams cost, get only half as much and they taste like actual cardboard. Just don’t. These homemade ones are super easy, no tricky or expensive ingredients, not even an egg so if you use vegan butter they will be vegan (other than the honey which I bet you could sub maple syrup in it; might need a bit more to get the right amount of liquid) and best of all, they are absolutely delicious!

You will want to eat them with tea, coffee or a glass of cold milk, not make crust out of them! No sawdust or cardboard flavor here. They are not overwhelmingly cinnaminy. [did I just make up a new word?] If you want that, add another half or whole teaspoon of cinnamon. Cheap, yummy and fun to make; let the kids prick them each 2-3 times with a dinner fork. Mine look like my grands made them; crooked edges and somewhat uneven; who cares; they are going into the blender tomorrow!

I found a couple of similar gf recipes and altered to suit my wishes. They make me happy as they are much cleaner than commercial stuff which can be full of preservatives or other ghastly crap. And I am not supporting a big GF baking company by paying a lot for nasty tasteless crackers.  You can do these! The dough is very forgiving.

Notes: you can use a measure for measure flour; just leave out the xanthan gum. Not sure if they will cook as fast. Check them frequently during the last 2-3 minutes.

I love these crackers for my Easter Cherry Sunrise Pie. Great for a chocolate pudding pie. Any recipe for a cookie crumbled up crust works great with these beauties. If you are baking them for that purpose bake them an extra minute or two and leave them out at least 24 hours to dry further. If they are fresh the crumbs will fuse together and sag making your crust top lower and once it cools it will be extra firm but it will still taste good. Enjoy!

GF Graham Crackers

Ingredients

1 ½ cups gf flour blend; I used King Arthur’s Basic GF blend – I’m guessing a number of blends will work

½ tsp xanthan gum – if your flour blend doesn’t have any in it

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt (can cut in half if you use salted butter)

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 stick cold butter cut into small chunks

¼ cup honey

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3-4 Tbsp cold water

Directions: Mix all the dry ingredients in your stand mixer bowl until well blended. Add the butter chunks and blend with the beater attachment until well blended into tiny bits. Add honey, vanilla and 3 Tbsp cold water; stir; you will probably need that fourth Tbsp. of water to bring it into a cohesive dough. Be sure that the butter is fully blended in before stopping. Gather it into a ball and I sometimes put it in a plastic bag or even between the two sheets of parchment paper squashed down flat; it chills faster that way.  Chill a minimum of 30 minutes; an hour would be better. Unless you chill it the dough will be too sticky to work into a sheet of dough.

Tear off two sheets of parchment paper that will cover a large baking sheet or sided bake tray. Put the dough on one on a rolling surface and cover with the other sheet. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Use your rolling pin to roll it out to about 11×15 inches. Peel off the top sheet and use a pizza cutter or knife to cut the rolled-out dough into 3×2.5 inch rectangles; you should get about 24. Pick it up while still on the parchment and lay it on the baking tray. Poke each cookie 2-3 times with a dinner fork. Bake 14 minutes for softer cookies or 15 for more crisp which you want if  you are making crumbs for crust construction. I did 15 and I think 16 might be even crisper. Use the pizza cutter to go over those cuts again.  Leave on tray to cool for 10-12 minutes. Then slide the cookies off with a pancake turner onto a cooling rack and let cool completely. If you are going to grind them up for a graham cracker crust you should leave them sit out on the rack for 24 hours to crisp up. This is probably not going to work so great on a hot humid day… I use about ¾ of the cookies to make one crust; blend in blender and mix with ¼-1/3 cup melted butter, mix well; dump into pie pan and spread out to fill it. Bake at 375 degrees for about 12-15 minutes watching it closely. Let cool completely before filling. Enjoy!