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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.
When you’re working with the dough, do you use whole wheat flour or all purpose flour to prevent the dough from sticking?
Hi KPV, thanks for your question! You’ll want to use more of the whole wheat flour to dust the counter and roll out the dough. I hope you love these graham crackers! – Meggan
Delicious and easy to make. My 6yo can make it herself, and I put it in the oven. BUT I must say the addition of cinnamon makes it taste more like gingerbread or pain d’epice. So I omit now and it’s amazing! Honey Graham Crackers
These graham crackers are amazingly delicious and so easy!! So much better than store bought and great for s’mores!
Hi Linda, thank you so much! I appreciate the comment and I’m so happy that you loved them. – Meggan
If you omit the cinnamon will it take like a regular graham cracker?
Hi Valeen, thank you so much for your question! This recipe is for regular graham crackers. I don’t recommend omitting the cinnamon as it’s needed for flavor. I hope you love them! – Meggan
Hi, I don’t have butter at home for the moment, is it alright if I use olive oil (or other oil such as canola oil) plus some milk as a substitute for butter? Thanks!
Hi Nova, thank you so much for your question! I haven’t tried substituting the butter with olive oil in this recipe. Since butter is solid at room temperature, typically it could be substituted with another type of fat that also is solid at room temperature, such as shortening. I recommend you use a recipe that has been developed using olive oil rather than this one, so your graham crackers come out right. Sorry about that! – Meggan
Thanks for a great recipe. You can use it to make a ‘graham cracker’ crust by just rolling it out and lining a pan. Much easier than making the crackers, crumbling them & making a crust. Might want to increase the sugar a bit, since most of the graham cracker crust recipes add sugar.
To the ones asking about white flour – ‘graham’ means whole wheat – if you use white flower, they will not be graham crackers LOL … good, but not graham crackers.
Thanks for a great site.
You’re so welcome, Liz! Thank you for the great tip! – Meggan
Are the nutrition facts for one cracker? I made these for my son’s lunch and they are DELICIOUS, but trying to be cautious with how much sugar he gets 😊
Hi Payton, thank you so much for your question, I love that you made them for your son! Yes, the nutrition facts are estimating for one cracker, or 1/24th of the recipe. It may vary some based on the exact brands you use. Take care! – Meggan
Is there a reason it has to be whole wheat flour and not the white whole wheat? I realized when I got home I had white whole wheat and want to avoid going back to the store in the morning.
Hi Michelle! Thank you so much for your comment. The white whole wheat flour will result in crackers with a lighter color, different texture, and a sweeter flavor. – Meggan
Making a giant s’more cake so I made these into 7×7 squares and they came out perfect!! I had some extra dough and made some regular graham crackers and I love snacking on them!!
Hi Kat, thank you so much for your comment! I love that you used these for s’mores cake, what a fantastic idea! Take care! – Meggan
Hello love the recipe but what if I want to do chocolate or the cinnamon coated ones how could I adabt the recipe to be able to do that
Hi Jessica, thank you so much for your question! To make these chocolate, 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! For cinnamon sugar, I would sprinkle cinnamon sugar topping on the dough after rolling it out and docking it, before baking. (Here’s my recipe for cinnamon sugar topping – https://cash-surge.live/cinnamon-sugar-topping/%3C/a%3E%29 I hope you love them! – Meggan
I struggle when people want to make changes to recipes but I would like to make these for my grandson who is still too young for honey, is there another option?
Thanks so much,
Tracy
Hi Tracy, thank you so much for your question! It’s sweet you would love to make then for your grandson! Readers have substituted equal amounts of maple syrup or molasses in their crackers. I hope he loves them! – Meggan