Skip to main content
Snack

Graham Crackers

A simple cracker made from graham flour, cream, milk, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Graham Crackers

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. Rub the baking powder into the graham flour.

  2. Add the cream and a little salt, then mix in the milk. Mix well until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough as thin as soda crackers.

  2. Cut into any shape you prefer.

  3. Bake until golden brown, then leave them near the stove for a few hours to dry thoroughly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the crackers their structure and nutty flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to give the crackers a light rise and tender bite.
Cream
Adds fat, which tenderizes the dough and contributes richness and browning.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and binds the dough together.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through and turns crisp; thick dough stays soft and doughy inside. Rolling it as thin as soda crackers is what gives the crisp, snappy texture.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

FrittersFritters56 recipesCrisp CrackersCrisp Crackers7 recipes