A Week of Whole Grain Baking, Day 7: Chocolate Graham Crackers

This week long, whole grain bake fest involved a lot of cracker making. While I was at it, I decided to try my hand at the sweet kind, namely the Graham Cracker. Having made regular graham crackers ages ago, pretty much at the beginning of my blogging days, I decided to go with the chocolate graham. Besides, who doesnt love chocolate? Right. Aaaand, it would make a bigger dent in the barley flour-- let's not forget the reason for this week of wholesome baking. Anyway, the dough comes along pretty easily by hand and then takes a time out in the fridge. It then gets rolled out, docked and baked. The smell of them baking pervaded the entire hallway with a luxurious chocolate scent. Yum! And they taste as good as they smell, a deep chocolate flavor with a nice crackery crunch. I cut some of the cracker dough in half and so the smaller pieces got burned and threw them away; with such a deep colored dough, it's kind of hard to tell when theyre done. My next batch, I took them out earlier, which made for a softer, hbendier cracker, which my girls actually loved. The last batch, I made normally. I plunked a jar of peanut butter down next to the crackers, encouraging the girls to eat them together. Most girls did. Classic combination. Feel free to eat them plain or crush them up in a food processor to use as a crust in your favorite pie. Or make a chocolate smore. Whip out your cookie cutters and make animal crackers. Let your imagination run wild!

Chocolate Graham Crackers

from Whole Grain Baking

1 cup barley flour

1 cup flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup Dutch process cocoa

1 cup light or dark brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chilled butter or margarine

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup honey

1 tbsp vanilla

Place all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl,

and whisk thoroughly to combine.

Add the margarine,

and cut in thoroughly.

In a measuring cup, combine the liquid ingredients,

and pour over the dry ingredients.

Mix thoroughly with your hands or a mixer or a spoon until evenly moistened. Divide dough into two, cover with plastic wrap and chill for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment. Working with one disk at a time, roll dough directly onto parchment paper until the dough is about an 1/8th of an inch thick. Using a bench knife, score the dough into crackers and dock with a fork.

Transfer the cracker dough to the baking sheet,

and bake until the edges are firm, about 13 minutes. Let cool on their pans before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Whip out the marshmallows!