An easy recipe for Homemade Graham Crackers. Made with 100% whole wheat flour and molasses, these are so much better than store-bought crackers!
Homemade Graham Crackers are truly something special.
Yes, they are made with ingredients you know and recognize and are not “processed.” However, the flavor of homemade graham crackers is far superior to store-bought and totally worth the effort.
How do you make Graham Crackers?
Graham crackers, like many cookies, are made with the creaming method. This means you cream softened fat (butter or shortening) in a mixer with sugar until it is pale in color and fluffy.
Then, add your remaining wet ingredients (in this case, molasses and vanilla) and your dry ingredients.
Scrape your dough and knead by hand before forming into two large rectangles. Score the dough before baking, but otherwise leave it uncut.
Bake the crackers until darkened, then break along the score lines.
Or, you can use a pizza wheel to cut out any shapes you want.
Store the baked graham crackers in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks. Or, freeze the crackers for up to 3 months.
Homemade Graham Crackers
- 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour plus more for dusting (not stone-ground or white whole white flour)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 3/4 cup butter softened (1 1/2 sticks)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses (unsulfured, not blackstrap) or honey or sorghum (not maple syrup)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
To make the dough:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In a standing mixer fit with the paddle attachment, or with an electric hand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Reduce speed to low and add molasses and vanilla until combined.
- Increase speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture until incorporated and a soft dough forms.
- Scrape dough onto a work surface and knead gently to form a ball. Divide in half and knead each ball on a bare work surface until pliable and smooth.
To roll and bake the dough:
- Adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously flour your counter or a piece of parchment paper and place one ball of dough in the center.
- Pat into a 5-by-6-inch rectangle, sprinkle with flour, flip, and dust again, Working from the center out and adding more flour as needed, roll the dough until roughly 15-by-11 inches and very thin. Slide onto am aluminum baking sheet and brush away excess flour. Repeat with remaining dough.
- For grocery store look-alike, score each sheet of dough into twelve 2 1/4-by-4 3/4-inch rectangles and dock with a bamboo skewer or the narrow end of a chopstick. Otherwise leave the dough uncut.
- Bake until crackers and firm and darkened, about 20 minutes. Immediately cut along the pre-scored lines with a knife, or cut into free-form shapes using a pizza wheel. Cool to room temperature directly on the baking sheets.
- The graham crackers can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks at room temperature or frozen for up to 3 months.
I love graham crackers for a snack. I’m excited to try this because I prefer real food ingredients. Just curious though – why not maple syrup?
Hi Trudy, it’s because of the unique water content and pH of maple syrup. It just doesn’t work in graham crackers. Thanks for your question! -Meggan
Brigettes birthday
Why whole wheat flour and not graham flour?
Hi Jocelyn, graham flour is really hard to find so I started with a recipe that used whole wheat flour. I plan to try to a version with graham flour though, to see if it’s any better. It might make all the difference and be worth hunting down to the people who really want to make these crackers from scratch! Thanks – Meggan
This is clearly the recipe from BraveTart by Stella Parks and is available with appropriate credit given on a number of other sites. I wish you’d follow that lead and acknowledge where you got the recipe from. Not so interested in browsing other recipes here if that’s your typical MO.
You’re right, this is Stella’s recipe. My policy is to cite sources although clearly I didn’t here, and I’m sorry about that. I would never be able to conjure a graham cracker recipe out of thin air. Her recipe is actually really problematic, many readers have had trouble with it and I have too. I’ve tried some of the other top results in Google too and the dough is always so crumbly (chilling helps, but not entirely). I have added the citation, thanks for pointing that out, and I’m still on the hunt for a better recipe that never fails. Thanks and sorry again. -Meggan
I tried desperately to get this dough to come together and I couldn’t. I’m a novice Baker and this was something new but with 2 toddlers running around and being pregnant I couldn’t give it more time and had to chuck it with tears from everyone. Any tips would be greatly appreciated
Hi Toni, I feel terrible. You are living my life – 2 small children and pregnant (congratulations on that!). The last thing you need is a graham cracker recipe to fail for you! I have made it before without issue, so I’m really sorry the dough didn’t come together for you. With baking, the most important thing is to measure the ingredients correctly, but I’m fairly confident you did that. I should add more notes in the recipe about the ingredients. For example, blackstrap molasses does not work as well but I don’t think i wrote that anywhere. Did you use that, by any chance? I hope not. Also, the flour should be whole wheat but not stone-ground or white whole wheat. Is there any chance you used one of those (I hope not since I didn’t explain this clearly). Other than that, everything should be fine. I’m going to make these crackers again next week and see what I can figure out. In the meantime, I am so sorry for ruining the day. I feel terrible. Take care. -Meggan
Can this be modified to make chocolate graham crackers?
Hi Erin, yes! Reduce the whole-wheat flour to 2 1/4 cups (10 ounces), and sift it with 1/3 cup (1 ounce) of cocoa powder (natural or Dutch processed are both fine). Instead of rolling out the dough with flour, roll it out with extra cocoa powder to keep the dark brown color. Otherwise everything else is the same! Thank you and good luck! :D -Meggan
Using baking soda as a leavening agent what does it react with, is it the molasses?
Yes, exactly. Baking soda will react with the molasses. -Meggan
Great recipe!! I only need graham crackers for making crusts (cheesecake) and prefer to make my own. This is the best recipe I’ve found.
Is there a big difference if I use honey instead of the molasses?
Can’t wait to add them with homemade marshmallows And dark chocolate truffle sauce, oh yum!
Yes!!! What time should I be there? LOL!!
Graham crackers are my absolute favorite but I’ve never tried making them at home. Definitely making this!