Graham Cracker Experiment

For ages I've been looking for a really good Cheese Cake recipe. I tried several that required no crust and one which I created a chocolate cookie crumb crust which I spent hours slaving over, and turned out only so so. Most of the truly amazing cheese cake recipes required a graham cracker crust, and I had simply never heard of a gluten free graham cracker.

After a little bit of research, I discovered that a graham cracker was essentially a cross between a cookie and a cracker, flavored with honey. But even in the gluten-filled world, graham cracker recipes are scarce. I looked at my gluten free cookie and cracker recipes and began formulating something I thought would turn out like a graham cracker, then compared the recipe to a regular graham cracker recipe, made a few adjustments, and felt satisfied. I wanted something that would become a dough I could roll out, with a small amount of agent so it would not rise, and a lot of flavor.

Here's what I did:

• 7 tablespoons butter (cold)
• 1 cup rice flour
• 2/3 cup corn starch
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

-I preheated the oven to 400 degrees F.
-I creamed the butter enough so that it would be easy to mix in other ingredients. I then added the rice flour, sugar, salt, xanthan gum, baking soda, and cinnamon, and mixed until the mixture formed a fine crumb.

-Next, I added the vanilla, 2 tabelspoons of the yogurt, and the honey. Honey is rather difficult to measure and add to ingredients, and I'm not entirely sure if it's easier when it's cold or warm. I do recommend spooning it into the measuring cup rather than pouring it. Mixed well.

-The mixture was too wet. It was creamy rather than the dough texture I was looking for. After a little more experimenting, I ended up adding the 2/3 cup of corn starch and additional tablespoon of yogurt. The result was a satisfying ball of dough that was a very pretty brown color and very yummy.

-I lightly greased a baking sheet and placed the dough onto the center of it. With a piece of parchment paper on top, I rolled the dough out until it was about a quarter of an inch thick. (There ended up being too much for one baking sheet, so I cut the edges of the circle of dough, making a square on the sheet, collected the excess dough, and rolled it out into a separate baking sheet.) Then, with a knife, I cut the dough into squares, about the size of normal graham grackers, and pricked each square several times with a fork.

-The actual baking process was a little convoluted. The smaller and slightly thinner batch was placed on the center rack, which proved to be too much for it. After eight minutes, it was burnt on the edges. The larger batch stayed on the top rack. After the initial eight minutes, I lowered the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. I checked this batch regularly, and the edges browned slowly. I baked it for about 25 minutes total.

-First out of the oven, both batches were rather soft, though the top was solid enough to tap with my fingernail. However, after cooling, the crackers became increasingly crispy until the entire batch were as crispy and crunchy as normal graham crackers.


The results: The biggest thing I learned with this batch is that if these graham crackers brown at all on the edges, they will taste burnt. The middle crackers, however, that turned the light brown color of normal graham crackers, were delicious, and as far as my memory could tell me, tasted very much like normal graham crackers as well. They were a little thicker, and a little heavier in taste, so they left my thirsty after one or two. I had my boss who is a professional gluten free baker and cook try one and she thought they were very tasty. My boyfriend ate one without knowing what it was and said, "oh! These are the graham crackers you were talking about making!" He grabbed another one on his way out and wanted me to leave the rest to be consumed later.

I feel like the most experimentation needs to be done with the baking time and temperature. I might change the flour ratios around a little bit, so that there is more corn starch and less rice flour, which I think might help with the heavy texture, and I might decrease the amount of cinnamon just a little cause it seemed a little strong, but really, I want to get a batch that is good all the way through, not just the center ones.

All in all, I feel like this recipe was a success. It produced graham crackers that are extremely similar to the original gluten filled ones that were tasty and enjoyed by non gluten-free citizens, and they made very suitable crumbs which could be used for a Cheese Cake, which was in truth, the original goal.

(This recipe was completely of my own invention. )