A Graham Cracker Duel

I have been making graham crackers to accompany my marshmallows for a few months now, so you can imagine that I was a bit incredulous to see Smitten Kitchen's very recent set of posts on the same combo here and here. But, because I am generally a fan of Smitten Kitchen, I decided to give her version a try.



They were delicious but, for three reasons, I will stick with my original recipe.

1. My original recipe actually uses graham flour. I do not think there is much point to graham crackers if you aren’t going to use the named ingredient. That said, I substituted graham flour in the SK version too, so I can’t really say what it would taste like without the graham flour.
2. My original recipe calls for half a stick of butter, this recipe calls for almost a whole stick. To be sure, the butter adds to the richness, but for nearly twice the fat, not worth it.
3. The SK version requires you to refrigerate the dough in advance. This is a pain, especially if you are like me and cannot plan that far in advance.

So, these caveats in mind, here is my previous recipe, taken almost verbatim from here but with a few additions.

Ingredients:
• 4 T (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 6 T sugar
• 4 T honey
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 2 t water. I found that I needed more water the first time because the final product wasn’t sticking together. This was not true the second time. I think it has to do with out “liquidy” the honey is. If you need to add a little more water to get the dough to form, that’s fine, just do it very gradually.
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 C graham flour
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t vanilla

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Combine the butter, egg and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Stir in the honey and blend.
4. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the butter mixture.
5. Add the salt, graham flour, all-purpose flour, vanilla, and cinnamon to the mixture and blend thoroughly. The dough should hold together and be manageable.
6. Divide the dough into 4 sections. Keep the sections in the refrigerator when they are not in use.
7. Dust the counter with all-purpose flour. You will need a lot of flour at this stage, especially if you are not rolling the crackers out directly on the sheet where you plan to bake them. Roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch.
8. Cut the crackers. If you want squares, you can just use a knife or (as SK does) a pastry wheel. I make them round, and I use the top of a peanut butter jar as my cookie cutter (This really is how we do things on the south side, even though I am only faux south side now).
9. Using a metal spatula, transfer the cookies to a lined/grease baking sheet. I tried a plastic spatula, they stuck to it.
10. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and cool on racks. They will not be crunchy, but that’s fine.
12. Eat with these and a bit of chocolate.