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.
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
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
