Whole Wheat Graham Crackers

    My how I have missed my cooking blog over the last few weeks!  A new full-time job plus a crashed computer hard drive equals no blog posts.  My sweet husband has been a saint and taken care of my computer issues.  I cannot count how much time he spent at the computer store getting my documents, pictures, and music recovered.  From now on, I will be backing my files up on another device.  Lesson learned :)  Also, my very gracious father gave me his old laptop computer which he no longer needed.  For $75 I have a new (used) computer with all my old files loaded on it.  

    I have yet to figure out a good balance between working, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and blogging.  Out of everything that must be done I know that blogging is not an absolute necessity, although, I do enjoy this creative outlet and miss it terribly.  For now I will leave you with these graham crackers.  They have become a new pantry staple in our household for J.T.  He prefers to eat them with peanut butter or ice cream (or both).  I have adapted the original recipe from The Homemade Pantry by substituting all whole white wheat flour and butter.  This removes the white refined flour and shortening - two things I avoid.  Before adapting the recipe, I followed the original version.  J.T. cannot tell a taste or texture difference between the two recipes.  I will warn you that these crackers are hard work.  Rolling the dough out takes some serious arm muscle power.  I hope to eventually adapt this to a slice and bake recipe, but for now the workout will not kill me.  One of the main reasons I love this recipe is that it can be made in advance and frozen.  You can then pull out however many you need and recrisp them in a 375 degree oven for 3 minutes.

Recipe adapted from The Homemade Pantry

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups whole white wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 7 tablespoons butter, chilled and cut into cubes
• ¼ cup cold water
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In the bowl of a heavy duty mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and brown sugar on low speed until everything is combined.  Add the chilled butter.  Start at the lowest speed possible and bring the speed of the mixture up gradually to a medium high.  Beat the dry ingredients and the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse texture.  
2. In a small glass measuring cup, stir together the water, honey, and vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry.  Gradually increase the speed of the mixer until the dough begins to come together.  The dough will be crumbly but should hold together.  Roll the dough into a ball and wrap it in wax paper.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours (or the dough can be frozen at this point).  
3. Set the dough out of the refrigerator for one hour before you begin rolling it out.  Lightly flour two pieces of wax paper.  You will be rolling the dough out on a large dough board or pastry mat between the two pieces of floured wax paper.  Divide the dough ball into quarters (it is easier to work with smaller amounts of dough at a time).  Roll the dough ⅛ to ¼ inch thick.  Use a 3-inch biscuit cutter to cut out the crackers (or you can attempt to make perfectly symmetrical squares).  Place the cut out dough on ungreased cookie sheets.  Using a fork, poke several holes in the top of each cracker.  Bake at 350 degrees for 11 to 12 minutes.  Yields about 32 crackers.  Remove the crackers to a wire rack to cool completely before storing.  Keeps for up to one week in the pantry and for three months in the freezer.  

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