gluten-free Graham Crackers!

[Nantzie]

One of the things I've been missing a lot was graham crackers. Love graham crackers and frosting. And the thought of never being able to have s'mores again... Ugh...

So I decided to figure out what the heck was in them to see if there was any hope of someday figuring out a recipe for them.

When I looked up "graham flour" it turned out all it was was whole wheat flour, just coarsely ground. So nothing terribly special about that. I always thought it was some special type of grain.

Then, the other day, I decided to try making cookies with the Pamela's Baking Mix and saw that it had almond meal in it, giving it a wonderful texture, and a great, slightly nutty taste, and I thought that it would be a perfect flour mix to use for trying out graham crackers.

Then I came across the Nabisco Honeymaid Graham Crackers recipe from Top Secret Recipes. So I decided to try those. www.topsecretrecipes.com Go to Recipes, then View by Brand - Nabisco.

I subsituted Pamela's Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix for all three cups of the flours.

I put in the salt, baking soda and baking powder the recipe called for, without realizing that Pamela's already has all that in the mix. So it turned out slightly salty, but not by much because graham crackers have a surprising amount of salt in them anyway. They also turned out really crispy and not crumbly at all. The texture was more crisp than a graham cracker, but I'd bet that was more due to my adding the extra salt, baking soda and baking powder than it was a flaw of the recipe.

When you're mixing the flour into the shortening/sugar/honey, it will end up being a bunch of crumbs. (Kind of like making pie crust, if I remember that process right...) Then, as you add the water, it pulls together into a dough. Cut WAY back on the water though. I only added 1/4 cup and it went way past dough and into paste. So I'd add it a tablespoon at a time until you get a workable dough.

Instead of trying to make graham cracker squares, I just made them old school -- Roll a ball of dough about the size of a pecan. Put it on a greased baking sheet. Take a glass, dip it in sugar, and flatten the ball of dough into the desired thickness. You'll get a flat, round cookie with rough edges. When they're baked the roughness pulls together because of the dough spreading a little, and you'll end up with perfectly round cookies.

Baking time for me was only 13 minutes, rather than the 20-25 minutes called for in the recipe.

They turned out SO good.

Nancy

[tarnalberry]

nice. congrats on the success, and thanks for letting us know!

[jenvan]

i used to adore graham crackers...will have to try this! thanks!

[Becky6]

Thanks for sharing!! I LOVE graham crackers and miss them!!