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If you have the time and the energy, Homemade Graham Crackers are truly something special. As a classically-trained chef with lots of experience in baking and pastries, I tested and perfected this recipe so it’s ready for your next weekend baking project.
Soul Warming Graham Crackers At Home
If you are trying to minimize processed ingredients or avoid things like palm oil and high fructose corn syrup, these are an easy yes. But even that’s not on your radar, you can make graham crackers at home because they are simply delicious and smell wonderful.
Be sure to consider the measurements in the recipe and to roll out your dough to the correct thickness. Otherwise, your crackers might end up too thin or too thick. I love graham crackers for quick snacks (especially spread with cream cheese frosting, just like mom used to do), s’mores, and dessert crusts.
Table of Contents
Graham Cracker Ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
- Whole wheat flour: Do not substitute stone ground or white whole wheat flour.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment, or with an electric hand mixer, cream butter and sugar together.
- Increase speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture until incorporated well and a soft dough forms, about 2 minutes.
- Add the milk, honey, and vanilla extract. Mix until incorporated. The dough should be sticky and soft.
- Divide the dough into two discs, wrap both in plastic, and chill for at least one hour.
- Adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously flour your counter or a piece of parchment paper and place one ball of dough in the center.
- Pat into a 5-by-6-inch rectangle, sprinkle with flour, flip, and dust again.
- Working from the center out and adding more flour as needed, roll the dough with a rolling pin until roughly 15-by-11 inches and very thin, about 1/8-inch thick.
- Slide the parchment paper on to a baking sheet and brush away excess flour. Repeat with the remaining dough. For grocery store look-alike, score each sheet of dough into twelve 2 1/4-by-4 3/4-inch rectangles and dock with a bamboo skewer, fork, or the narrow end of a chopstick (feel free to use a ruler). Otherwise, leave the dough uncut.
- Bake until crackers and firm and darkened, about 10-12 minutes. Immediately cut along the pre-scored lines with a knife, or cut into free-form shapes using a pizza cutter. Cool to room temperature directly on the baking sheets.
Where to buy a rolling pin
I got the J.K. Adams French Rolling Pin at Amazon for $18. It’s my favorite rolling pin because features tapered edges instead of handles, so you can change the position of your hands right on the dowel instead of using specific handles. I use it for all my parties and baked goods!
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes 24 graham crackers.
- Storage: The graham crackers can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks at room temperature or frozen for up to 3 months.
- Make ahead: The dough may be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 1 week. Bring to room temperature for 30 minutes before using.
- Pie Crust: Use leftover graham cracker crumbs in a delicious Graham Cracker Crust made with crackers, melted butter, and sugar. It’s the base of many desserts including Vanilla Cheesecake, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Cheesecake Bars, and Key Lime Pie.
Frequently Asked Questions
The closest cracker to a graham cracker in the UK and Australia is called a digestive biscuit.
Graham crackers are never healthy in that they are mostly empty carbohydrates. But, not all food needs to be consumed for health purposes. By making homemade graham crackers which contain whole wheat flour and honey instead of refined sugar, you can close the gap between “snack” and “health food.”
These crackers are named after Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister who lived in the 19th century. Graham believed that in order to live in the way God wanted, people should resist all pleasures. This included eating a vegetarian diet. He created graham crackers, then an unsweetened biscuit, as an example of the pleasureless food he wanted his congregation to eat.
We don’t think so. Graham flour is extremely hard to track down even with the resources we have here. So, we developed a graham cracker recipe without it, and we think it tastes great. Your kids will love them!
More homemade snacks
Chocolate Recipes
Puppychow
Appetizer Recipes
Ranch Oyster Crackers
Appetizer Recipes
Chex Mix Recipe
Candy Recipes
Candied Pecans
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Graham Cracker
Equipment
- Stand mixer (I LOVE my KitchenAid Professional mixer!)
- Pizza Wheel (This makes it easier to cut the crackers)
- Bamboo skewers (For scoring the crackers!)
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour plus more for dusting (see note 1)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 7 tablespoons butter softened
- 1 cup light brown sugar packed
- 3 tablespoons whole milk
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
To make the dough:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment, or with an electric hand mixer, cream butter and sugar together.
- Increase speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture until incorporated well and a soft dough forms, about 2 minutes.
- Add the milk, honey, and vanilla extract. Mix until incorporated. The dough should be sticky and soft.
- Divide the dough in two discs and wrap both in plastic and chill for at least one hour.
To roll and bake the dough:
- Adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously flour your counter or a piece of parchment paper and place one ball of dough in the center.
- Pat into a 5-by-6-inch rectangle, sprinkle with flour, flip, and dust again. Working from the center out and adding more flour as needed, roll the dough until roughly 15-by-11 inches and very thin, about 1/8-inch thick. Slide the parchment paper onto a baking sheet and brush away excess flour. Repeat with remaining dough.
- For grocery store look-alike, score each sheet of dough into twelve 2 1/4-by-4 3/4-inch rectangles and dock with a bamboo skewer or the narrow end of a chopstick. Otherwise, leave the dough uncut.
- Bake until crackers and firm and darkened, about 10-12 minutes. Immediately cut along the pre-scored lines with a knife, or cut into free-form shapes using a pizza wheel. Cool to room temperature directly on the baking sheets.
- The graham crackers can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks at room temperature or frozen for up to 3 months.
Notes
- Whole wheat flour: Do not substitute stone ground or white whole-wheat flour.
- Yield: This recipe makes 24 graham crackers.
- Storage: The graham crackers can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks at room temperature or frozen for up to 3 months.
I love graham crackers for a snack. I’m excited to try this because I prefer real food ingredients. Just curious though – why not maple syrup?
Hi Trudy, it’s because of the unique water content and pH of maple syrup. It just doesn’t work in graham crackers. Thanks for your question! -Meggan
Brigettes birthday
Why whole wheat flour and not graham flour?
Hi Jocelyn, graham flour is really hard to find so I started with a recipe that used whole wheat flour. I plan to try to a version with graham flour though, to see if it’s any better. It might make all the difference and be worth hunting down to the people who really want to make these crackers from scratch! Thanks – Meggan
I tried desperately to get this dough to come together and I couldn’t. I’m a novice Baker and this was something new but with 2 toddlers running around and being pregnant I couldn’t give it more time and had to chuck it with tears from everyone. Any tips would be greatly appreciated
Hi Toni, I feel terrible. You are living my life – 2 small children and pregnant (congratulations on that!). The last thing you need is a graham cracker recipe to fail for you! I have made it before without issue, so I’m really sorry the dough didn’t come together for you. With baking, the most important thing is to measure the ingredients correctly, but I’m fairly confident you did that. I should add more notes in the recipe about the ingredients. For example, blackstrap molasses does not work as well but I don’t think i wrote that anywhere. Did you use that, by any chance? I hope not. Also, the flour should be whole wheat but not stone-ground or white whole wheat. Is there any chance you used one of those (I hope not since I didn’t explain this clearly). Other than that, everything should be fine. I’m going to make these crackers again next week and see what I can figure out. In the meantime, I am so sorry for ruining the day. I feel terrible. Take care. -Meggan
Can this be modified to make chocolate graham crackers?
Hi Erin, yes! Reduce the whole-wheat flour to 2 1/4 cups (10 ounces), and sift it with 1/3 cup (1 ounce) of cocoa powder (natural or Dutch processed are both fine). Instead of rolling out the dough with flour, roll it out with extra cocoa powder to keep the dark brown color. Otherwise everything else is the same! Thank you and good luck! 😀 -Meggan
Using baking soda as a leavening agent what does it react with, is it the molasses?
Yes, exactly. Baking soda will react with the molasses. -Meggan
Great recipe!! I only need graham crackers for making crusts (cheesecake) and prefer to make my own. This is the best recipe I’ve found.
Is there a big difference if I use honey instead of the molasses?
Can’t wait to add them with homemade marshmallows And dark chocolate truffle sauce, oh yum!
Yes!!! What time should I be there? LOL!!
Graham crackers are my absolute favorite but I’ve never tried making them at home. Definitely making this!