Take a Megabite

Julienne’s Graham Cracker Chewy Bars

Gravel roads remind me of graham cracker crumbs. My childhood best friend called her grandma “grammy” and it reminded me of graham crackers. Once I ate a store-bought graham cracker crust  standing in my mom’s pantry… and loved it.

I’ve always loved graham crackers so I knew I’d love this recipe since it has way more graham cracker crumbs in the ingredients than anything else.

Side-note: one of the eggs I used had freckles. This isn’t a recipe requirement, but it might make your bars extra good.

I used up most of my brown sugar and all of my fancy vanilla. (I didn’t run out of my kosher salt, but it just wanted to be in the picture too.) This would’ve made me crabby except that I now have graham cracker chewy bars that are dangerously good.

Julienne’s Graham Cracker Chewy Bars
Recipe adapted from Celebrating with Julienne via The LA Times

Ingredients:

crust -

• 3 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 3/4 cup ( 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 T all-purpose flour

topping -

• 2 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 3/4 t salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup chopped pecans or chocolate chips (I used chocolate chips because I had them on hand.)
• powdered sugar, if desired

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the graham cracker crumbs, butter, sugar and flour until moist and well-blended. Press the mixture firmly and evenly over the bottom of a 9 x13 inch baking dish. (Feel free to line the baking dish with foil and spray it, like I did. I just wanted them to be super easy to remove and cut later on.) Bake until the crust is golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. While the crust is baking, in a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and eggs to blend. Whisk in the graham cracker crumbs, vanilla, salt and baking powder until well-blened. Stir in the pecans or chocolate chips.
3. Spread the mixture over the baked crust and return to the 350-degree oven until the filling is light-golden on top and jiggles slightly when tapped, 20-25 minute. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and cool completely.
4. Sprinkle a light coating of sifted powdered sugar over the pan if desired, and cut into 24 bars. The bars can be made 1 day in advance. Wrap in plastic and keep at room temperature.

The crust was supposed to be more crusty and the top more chewy…
Mine turned out all chewy. I’m ok with it.

Corn Bread Crackers

Don’t you just hate when you’re super excited about a recipe and then it just turns out ugly. Delicious, but ugly. This happened to me last night. I’m sure if I would have served them to a crowd of people they would have exclaimed, “I’m sure these cupcakes have really good personalities…” And beside their unfortunate looks, they baked up in a completely unpredictable way.

I want to say it was my oven’s fault. I want to say it was my tiny oven that probably gets just as hot as it wants instead of following the rules, but I won’t. Mostly it was just sad that such a pretty batter could turn on me.

So instead, here is a recipe for a cracker that I have wanted to taste promptly upon knowing it existed. And they’re good!

AND if crackers are misshapen they’re referred to as “rustic” not ugly.

Corn Bread Crackers
Recipe adapted from Recipe Zaar

Ingredients:

• 1 cup corn meal
• 1/2 t sea salt
• 1 t granulated sugar
• 1/8 t fresh ground pepper
• 2 T flour
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 T butter
• 2 T grated gruyere (or parmesan if you’ve got that on hand)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a medium bowl, mix corn meal, sea salt, sugar, pepper, flour, and baking powder.
3. Pour boiling water over this and mix well. Incorporate egg, butter and cheese. Stir until butter is melted.
4. Drop by tablespoon onto a parchment lined baking pan and spread thin (the thinner the better) with a flat knife. Sprinkle with additional salt and/or pepper if you’re feeling spicy. Which I am, so I did.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until firm throughout, and darkening along the edges. (The longer you bake them, the crispier they will be. I found that some of mine were a bit chewy, and the ones that were darker were crispier.) Allow to cool for 30 minutes.

Serve these with your favorite cheese (perhaps dill havarti) around 3 pm when you’re starving at work or at home or in the car.

Graham Crackers

You look kinda hungry. I think you need a snack.
Perhaps you should eat some graham crackers dunked in milk.
Yeah, you most definitely should.

These guys stand up to milk like champs. You can dunk them to your hearts content without getting stressed out that they’ll break.
Who knew these were possible?

This recipe makes approximately 36 (2 1/2 inch) squares of honey graham goodness.

Graham Crackers
Recipe from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book

Ingredients:

• 4 T (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 6 T sugar
• 4 T honey
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 2 t water
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 cups graham flour
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Combine the butter, egg and sugar in a medium bowl, and beat until smooth and creamy. Stir in the honey and blend.
3. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the butter mixture. Add the salt, graham flour and all purpose flour to the mixture and blend thoroughly. The dough should hold together and be manageable. If it is too “tacky” add a little more graham flour.
4. Liberally dust a surface with graham flour and roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Cut into 2 1/2 inch square sections. (I cut a piece of parchment paper into a 2 1/2 inch square for measuring purposes.)
5. Using a spatula, place the cracker squares onto the parchment paper lined cookie sheets. With a knife gently score the dough in the center of each square without cutting through. Prick each square a few times with the tines of a fork on each side of the scored cracker.
6. Bake on the first side for 8 minutes, then turn the crackers over and bake for 6-7 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on racks.

I gobbled up a few promptly after they came out of the oven. Fannie Farmer describes them as “flavorful and fresh”. She wasn’t kidding. She’s not a prankster.