Homemade graham crackers made with honey. Refined sugar free and naturally sweetened. Made with coconut sugar, honey and optional molasses.
Were you worried the baby food section on this website would be ignored now that Camille has teeth, is walking, and is shaking her head 'no' at certain foods? I'm glad to say this isn't the case.
I will always make some form of baby food, but as Camille gets older, it's probably going to be desserts that are naturally-sweetened, or remakes of store-bought 'kid' food. Personally, I don't believe in kid food. But I also don't believe in denying your kids such rights of passage, like graham crackers.
Camille started going to a church daycare for 3 hours a day a few times a week when she was 9 months old. (I needed to start cleaning my house again, ya know?). Every day, I would fill out a form that specified food requests for her. Next to the box that said 'Are graham crackers okay?,'I would circle NO, underline it, and scribble in 'snacks from home only!' She is my first kid, after all.
I'm not sure if Camille stared longingly as the other kids ate graham crackers, but in my defense, she was very late to get her teeth, so I didn't think a hard cracker was a good idea.
She has five (yes, 5!) teeth now, and is really enjoying hard crunchy foods on her gums. She snatched a graham cracker off the cutting board when I was making my cheesecake dip, and her eyes lit up. She begged for more.
How I made homemade graham crackers with natural sweeteners:
So, I set about making homemade graham crackers, but I really wanted to use natural sweeteners.
I reached for coconut sugar, honey, and molasses for this recipe. The molasses is just for iron (and some may argue about its natural-ness), and if you really want to, you can use extra honey instead. I have a self-professed vegetarian kiddo on my hands, and so I welcome the iron in the molasses. (Side note: send tips for getting kids to eat meat in the comments below, please).
Homemade Graham Crackers
These homemade Graham crackers are super tasty!
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup grass-fed butter, chilled and diced
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup water
- 3 tablespoons molasses (or more honey)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350, and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flours, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Pulse a few times to combine.
- Add the diced butter, and pulse until a coarse meal forms, about 10 1-second pulses.
- Next, combine the honey, water and molasses (or more honey) in a measuring cup with spout. Stream the liquid into the food processor while its running (use the feed tube).
- The dough will clump together and form a ball.
- Roll out one-quarter of the dough at a time between two pieces of wax paper. Roll it until it's slightly less than ¼" thick.
- Use a square cookie cutter (or any other cookie cutter shapes you like) to cut out shapes.
- Peel the dough away from all the cut-outs, and then use a spatula to move them to the prepared baking sheet. (Removing all the dough around the crackers first helps you pick them up with the spatula without mangling them too badly).
- Use a fork to prick holes all over, and the blade of a knife to score them in half (do not cut all the way through).
- Bake for 14-17 minutes, until deeply golden brown on the edges (see photos for reference). If you underbake them, they're very soft (which might be okay for younger babies!)
- Store in an airtight container for 1 week.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 227Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 20mgSodium: 231mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 2gSugar: 18gProtein: 3g
Dev says
My son is 16 months old and these crackers sounds perfect for him as well as for us, I usually bake little cookies for him and sometime cheddar crackers. I was looking for homemade graham crackers recipe and I am definitely going to bake them on weekend.
Emily says
My 13 month old just started eating meat. I've realized that she only likes it in ground form, so this week I made some "baby" meatballs to have on hand for her. It's basically just ground turkey, chopped spinach, oats, eggs and garlic powder. Easy, and I like them too! I crumble one up for her, and it makes a good lunch or dinner, usually with some fruit on the side. She really didn't start showing an interest in table food until two weeks ago, so I was impressed that she ate it!
Christina Lane says
That sounds so good :)
Brigette Durocher says
I made a half-batch of these without coconut sugar, but with brown sugar and less molasses like you suggested above. The sticky dough made me skeptical but these came out lovely! I am using them to also make your no-bake cheesecake parfaits today- gotta use up that leftover cranberry sauce. I am loving baking and cooking my way through your archive!
Lisa Haarbye says
These are awesome. Do you think it would be ok to freeze leftover dough?
Christina Lane says
I do, Lisa! :)
Larni says
When using brown sugar, is it packed brown sugar?
Christina Lane says
Yes, packed.
Sandra D says
I assume the calorie count is for all 12 crackers and each one would be: Per cracker: 106 cal, sodium 178mg, carbs 23, sugar 4g, protein 3g
Sandra D says
Although that seems like a lot of sodium for one cracker :)
Caitlyn P says
Just made a batch! I knew i was going to eat some, so I subbed out regular butter with vegan butter (Dairy and I are, sadly, not friends) and they turned out great. It definitely took a test batch or two to get the thickness right (because it’s not often I’m using a rolling pin, totally user error), but soft or crunchy: these are so delicious. I can’t go back to store bought!
Karen Anderson says
The only food my son would not eat as a child was fish sticks. I thought all children would eat fish sticks because they are "finger foods". Nope. Wouldn't touch them. Any veggie, yes. He's 38 now and still won't eat any kind of fish. He topped off at 6'8" and is working on his Doctorate.
Christina Lane says
Awww, Karen! You raised a good one! 6'8"--wow! :)
TC says
Would love to make these, they look delish! I am checking as the nutritional info seems off, is one cracker really 1200 + calories and 46 grams sugar (that’s about 8 tsp)? Thanks!
Christina Lane says
No, that's 1200 calories for the entire batch.