Graham Crackers Home made with Jaggery ,Whole Wheat and Honey

Gift wrapped.

Gift full of good health and love.

Gifts that are so quick to make.

Gifts that taste delightful.

And taste of this earth.Totally Desi in approach, the atta and the gur...wholewhaet and jaggery and you can use ghee instead of the butter and shortening. 

Sweet child has been acting a little uppity the last few days. Downright cranky and moody! Refusing to eat anything homemade or made by yours truly. The question why always seems to linger on his tongue. Hubby dear's plaster cast seems to have rubbed off some reticence on him too. I made Chocolate Chip Cookies which he refused to taste...only because I said that he was a fair swimmer,not good!
Tantrums!
And then today, he just had a cookie,dunked in cold milk,and then went for the jar of the Graham Crackers....Lo and behold, he was back to being his normal not so sweet self!
Was that magic???
I also got a teeny hug BTW....so it must be magic that these Graham Crackers worked!

They also worked with the neighbours....
Try them, my whole house was smelling heavenly, of the most amazing warm aromas...and we just could not wait to dig in.

for the

Graham Crackers Home made with Jaggery ,Whole Wheat and Honey...

you need

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour/atta(Just in case you are wondering, I use Ashirwad Atta straight from the bag)
1/4 cup brown sugar-I used grated jaggery(gur)-this is Ranchi remember??
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup cold butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening(I had less butter)
1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda



And you need butter paper or the non stick paper and cling film for this. Extra flour to roll the dough is needed but if you roll directly on  the work top, its just going to drive you loco!

Start with the flour ,the sugars ,salt,cinnamon and the baking soda in the bowl.

To this add the honey and the fats. It would of course taste better with butter,but then what do you do when people go through butter like water.

Simply cut the fats into the flour mix.

I don't have a pastry cutter, so I use what God gave me, my own two hands. One for cutting the fat and the other for photographing.

I brought the dough together with a little bit of water -almost 1/4 cup chilled water.To look like this!

And wrapped it while I made the lot of the Wheat thins...yup, that too is coming up. After we had the Nabisco Wheat thin, I've been itching to make them...so I searched and searched and made a blunder and then got it right. So among the next posts, will be that.

A little whole wheat flour on the paper,tried rolling without the film on top...the dough just broke. Then brainwave....covered the dough with the film and rolled, the dough held together beautifully and rolled just as thin as I needed it.
1/8 th of an inch....

Now, I realised my mistake, I should have used superfine instead of granulated sugar. It was a pain trying to cut straight lines with my pizza cutter,Next time I'll use a rule and measure the cookies 3 inches by 3 inches...the standard size.
Rolled and cut, approximately in  the centre, I drew a line ,not to cut...just to demarcate...and pierced the cookies with the tynes of a fork.
Neat???

Lifted them off the paper and on to the baking tray, you can place them close together ,they do not spread their weight around and remain approximately the same size.

The oven must be pre heated to 175C/350F. You can chill the tray till your oven heats up or just let the cookies rest. Me, I made my second blunder by heating the oven to 190C ...that's why the crackers in the corner are over done.The minute I smelt the crackers bake too soon, I ran with a string of curses I though I'd forgotten...and reduced the temperature of the oven...Even my colourful language could not make the crackers any fairer!

But then,hey...they are whole wheat and made with jaggery. I tried looking for brown sugar here-BTW it is available everywhere, the easiest to find is TRUST brand or DHARAMPURE....available even in a tiny place like Pathankot,Punjab. Here, the storekeeper said something akin t o drugs not being available at his store.
Well! Really!
These were ready in 14 minutes, a little soft when I took them out and sat them on a rack to cool. While these crackers cooled I went for a walk, as if I needed to work up an appetite!
And when I came back...they were hard smelt divine...

Only they were a little dark...

But then..Hum Kaale hain to kya hua...dilwaale hain!

Gift wrapped...with lots of love.And ready to eat...have with cold milk or a hot cup of coffee or tea....

You can also use these to make a key lime pie instead of the digestive biscuits for the base. For the recipe go here.

Happiness is here...you can taste the goodness of the whole wheat and the unrefined sugar...and you don't have to pay through your nose if you want a pack Graham Crackers in India.

Try them and you'll adore them!

So what are you baking today???