Graham Crackers by Joshua Weissman
Are these worth the effort over store bought?
Time: 2 Hours
Difficulty: 2/5
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
I never thought about making graham crackers from scratch before seeing this recipe in Joshua Weissman’s An Unapologetic Cookbook. Unless they were stale, I never had any issues with store bought graham crackers. Sometimes home made things really open your eyes to how good some foods can really be. Other times they show you exactly why their made almost exclusive in factories. Which one with this be?
Key Ingredients and omissions:
Missing the egg here
You may have never seen whole wheat flour before, but it is probably in your grocery store. I don’t think there was anything necessarily key in this recipe, but nothing should be left out. I did forget to put the egg in the picture, but I did use it in the recipe.
Tools:
Rolling Pin
Whisk
Bowls
Cooking Review:
Mixing dry Ingredients: 10 minutes
I know this seems like a long time, but there’s a reason why this took so long. First, I used a food scale to measure out every ingredient to the gram according to the recipe. Then, once I had everything in the bowl, I whisked it as best as I could before breaking up the brown sugar by hand. This is what took made this take so long and I didn’t break up every single clump. I’m not sure if this was necessary, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Mixing wet ingredients: 6 Minutes
After whisking the egg, I weighted out and added the rest of the wet ingredients and whisked until well combined.
Making and Kneading Dough: 9 Minutes + 45 minutes refrigeration
I combined the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mixed until it just started to come together. There will still be a lot of dryness at this point. Then, I turned out what I had onto a work surface and kneaded it all together until smooth and no longer dry. The recipe says to add milk if it’s too dry, but I didn't find that to be necessary. I wrapped the dough up and put it in the refrigerator to chill for 45 minutes.
Rolling out and cutting dough: 20 minutes
After the chill, I rolled out the dough as thinly as I could, which was a little thicker than 1/8” and used a small circular cup to cut out circles of dough. I combined the excess dough and was able to roll it out thinner. This second round was cut into rough rectangles. I put the cut dough onto parchment lined baking sheets and poked holes in the tops before baking.
Baking Crackers: 17 minutes
The thiner crackers were baked for 15 minutes and the thicker ones were left to bake for an extra 2 minutes. The crackers were transferred to a cooling rack to cool off.
Analysis:
If someone gave you these, I’m pretty sure you’d know what they were aiming for. They do resemble graham crackers in taste and appearance. I was able to taste the honey and cinnamon, which was nice. However, that was about all I could taste. I feel like the dough could have used some more salt to make the flavors more intense and punchy. The flavors as they came out were just a little flat. As far as the texture goes, the edges were pretty crispy, but the interiors never got crispy, remaining closer to a stale graham cracker in texture. Also, the crackers were pretty dense and dry. I know graham crackers are typically dry, but these were another level. Maybe I needed to used the extra milk anyway? At the same time, I’m not sure why they seemed to be so dense. Graham crackers are typically more flaky than dense in my recollection. After making these, I don't think its really something you should make instead of just buying them from the store. You’ll probably enjoy the factory made crackers more. Maybe if you appreciate the more prominent honey and cinnamon flavors, perhaps you’ll like these more. I would say you should add more salt if you do decide to make these anyway, the flavor should improve if you do. I’m giving this recipe a 6/10. It may seem harsh, but this is something that is otherwise so easily available that making it yourself doesn’t make much sense unless it’s clearly and substantially better. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where homemade isn't better.
