Graham crackers

This is a very close approximation of modern Graham crackers, Honey Grahams, exactly, but they bear little resemblance to the original historic cracker named for Sylvester Graham. In fact, were he to read this post and scan its ingredients, he'd throw a hissy fit of Titanic proportions. Apparently, he was quite the opinionated little bastard. Not the kind of guy you'd care to have over for tea and crumpets. 

He waged a private war against refined white bread, among many other things including masturbation. Eventually he had to just shut up about that because the topic was too volatile and he got nowhere with it. Plus he was something of a schmuck about blaming all of his curative failures on that, and it started unproductive fights all over the place which tended to damage his attractiveness as a speaker and therefore his income, but all of that is beside the points I'm making here about crackers. In his own era, at the upswing of the industrial revolution, methods of milling were developed that made available refined white flour that was the endosperm of of the wheat grain without the husk and without the germ and which was bleached to a pure white using chemicals. Actually, I think the milled grain is gassed with chlorine but I'm not sure. Bleaching also improves the loaf volume. But all this messing with nature flat pissed Graham off.  He developed his own method of milling flour whereby the grain components were separated, the endosperm from the bran and the germ. The endosperm, the greater starchy portion, was milled finely as A/P flour is today. The husk and the germ was ground together coarsely then all three components were recombined. You can see how this is slightly different from milling the entire grain either finely or coarsely. Here, I shall draw a picture for you. 

This ↓ is whole wheat grain that I milled myself using a home Nutrimill machine. It is not Graham flour because the grain is all ground up at once, in this case very finely. Frankly, I do not think it makes any difference at all. So what if the fiber is coarse or fine, it does the same thing either way. 

The part that would make Sylvester flip out is that only 1/5 of the total flour is whole wheat. The rest is A/P flour, and that is the very thing he dedicated his life railing against. Well, I have this to say to Mr. Graham. "Piss off. Nobody likes your stupid ass whole wheat hardtack bread anyway. Plus you're dead." So there. 

One of those pats of butter was not used ↑. Cold butter processed with the two types of flour much like a pie crust. That ↓ is what the butter and flours look like processed together without anything else. 

Honey, vanilla (a lot), cinnamon (very little), dry ginger (very very little), and milk in mere tablespoons were processed to a crumbly consistency. At this point the mixture is moist but it is not pulling together. 

Water will be added in increments and in pulses of the processor until the mixture pulls away from the side of the processor bowl and begins to form a ball of dough. A leaven will be added but not until the last minute right before the dough is rolled out, scored and docked, and put into the oven. Since all that rolling, scoring, and docking will be done in increments, then so will the leaven be added in increments. 

The type of chemical leaven is undetermined at this point. That is another thing that would drive Sylvester Graham nuts. His original recipe calls for yeast not for a chemical leaven. The very suggestion of adding a chemical to a recipe for a product in his name would send him into a rage, if not to the courts to sue all our asses and force us to desist. La la la, I don't care. At any rate, online recipes are not in agreement about which chemical leaven to use. Seems a good idea to test the pH. A small portion of dough was pinched off and mixed with water then tested using a pH strip 

Slightly acid, innit. Therefore, baking soda it is. The dough is divided and the baking soda processed separately with each batch. Deciding how to divide the dough will take a bit of judgement. Good thing I made crackers before so I know approximately how much dough will roll out to a tray. Grahams crackers are a little bit thicker than a regular soda cracker or a cracker intended for dipping. 

Incidentally, in case you didn't know it, this is entirely an American thing. Graham, Kellogg, Post, were all on about the same or similar things at approximately the same time. I do not think the other English-speaking countries are as familiar with this particular treat, with the possible exception of Canada. It is rather like Jaffa Cakes, Hob Nobs, Pim's Biscuits are to Americans, something of an unknown. 

So now water was added in increments. It turned out slightly more wet than I would prefer to roll out. No problemo. A tablespoon or so of whole wheat flour will be processed along with the baking soda in increments. One teaspoon of baking soda in total, so 1/3 teaspoon baking soda processed with each individual batch. 

Now this 1/3 of the dough ↓ contains baking soda but the remaining 2/3 held in reserve does not. That is, not yet. 

Refined white sugar combined with cinnamon is sprinkled over the sheet and lightly rolled in. A lot of it sticks to the rolling pin, but that's okay because that was accounted for. The bench scraper is used to lightly score the sheet of dough without cutting through completely. A fork is used to dock holes into each cracker. 

The scraps for all three dough balls are collected and returned to the processor. They already contain baking soda so no more can be added unless additional acid is also added to balance it. I decided not to. There was enough scraps to roll out 2/3 of a complete tray, which by trimming produced one last little bit of scraps which was discarded except for one portion that was baked along with the rectangles. 

And let me tell you, these are mighty fine indeed. 

*  2 +1/2 cups flour, any combination of whole wheat and A/p, I suggest 1/4 whole wheat

*  1 cup dark brown sugar

*  3/4 teaspoon salt

*  nearly one full stick of butter

*  1/3 to 1/2 cup honey

*  1/4 to 1/3 cup whole milk

*  2 full Tablespoons vanilla, come on, load it up, tablespoons NOT teaspoons.

*  A little sump'n sump'n extra for the dough ↓ 

*  1 teaspoon cinnamon

*  3/4 teaspoon powdered ginger

*  1 teaspoon baking soda added to the divided dough balls in increments, or what the hell, live dangerously and add it all at once, see if I care. I'm not positive it makes any difference anyway. 

*  Extra stuff to top the crackers ↓

*  3 tablespoons refined granulated sugar

*  1 teaspoon cinnamon. 

Bake at 350℉ / 175℃ for 11 minutes, 13.62 seconds. <--- Kidding. I'm trying to tell you to pay attention to what you've got going on.