I was at the heath food store recently, perusing through the many bags of Bob’s Red Mill products when I spotted a bag of graham flour. Graham flour? Graham crackers, I thought. So, I grabbed a bag and went home.

Some may think of graham crackers as a childish food. And I suppose they are. I remember sitting around diminutive work tables in elementary school, with a Dixie cup full of apple juice and a teacher’s assistant placing graham crackers on the paper napkin in front of me. I loved the snack then, and I love the snack now. Graham crackers are still one of my go-to snacks when nothing else sounds good. Slathered with peanut butter, they can’t be beat. And I only could imagine that they would be superlative when homemade.

I went home, and did a quick Google search for graham cracker recipes, only to find that today’s graham crackers aren’t even made with graham flour. Sweetened with honey, and made golden with brown sugar they sounded like they were delicious biscuits, but not necessarily wheaty treats. I held the package of graham flour in my hand, dusty and the color of a morning cup of coffee with too much milk, and decided to simply substitute some of the all-purpose flour for graham flour.

They were delicious, and like I had guessed, far superior to the packaged crackers of my youth. With the addition of the graham flour, they were coarser (in a good way), and more substantial– the perfect afternoon snack. I left some plain, and dipped the rest in Belgian milk chocolate. The richness of the chocolate played nicely off of the gentle sweetness of the cracker.

The following recipe makes quite a few crackers. And the dough remains fresh in the refrigerator for quite a few days. In fact, I made two batches. The first recipe I rolled and cut by hand into more conventional rectangles. Later, I used a biscuit cutter, and made dainty circles– either way you do it is fine.

Graham Crackers
adapted from Nancy Silverton

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup graham flour
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed lightly
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into one-inch cubes
1/3 cup honey
5 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flours, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse until blended. Add the butter, and continue to pulse the food processor until a coarse meal is obtained.

In a small bowl, mix the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture , and pulse until the dough barely comes together. The dough will be soft and quite sticky. Place on a well-floured piece of plastic wrap. Flatten the dough into a rectangle, one-inch thick. Wrap dough, and chill until firm, at least 2 hours or overnight.

Divide dough in half, and return one half to the refrigerator. On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Dough will be sticky, use plenty of flour. With a pairing knife cut rectangles 2 by 3 inches, or use a round biscuit cutter. Place crackers on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and chill dough for 15-20 minutes in the freezer. Repeat process with the other half of the dough.

Adjust the racks in the oven the upper and lower third. Preheat to 350 degrees. Remove the crackers from the refrigerator, and poke several times with a toothpick or skewer to ensure flatness of the cracker upon baking.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets at 10 minutes to ensure even baking. Remove from oven, and place on a rack to cool. If desired, dip cool crackers in milk chocolate, melted in a double boiler.