recipe - graham sandwich cookies

My favorite treat that my mom used to make was graham crackers with cream cheese frosting. She always made them with her left over birthday cake frosting. My sister and I would eat them before the birthday dinner, and I'm pretty sure that I liked them even better than the cake.

Now that I'm trying to stay away from any thing partially or fully hydrogenated or high fructosed, store-bought graham crackers always make me cringe a little. However, I have yet to find a cracker recipe that my kids will not gag over.

Success!!!!!! (I actually spelled that wrong and had to use the cheer I learned in 5th grade to figure it out- s-u-c-c-e-s-s, that's they way we spell success!)

The original recipe is here http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/healthy-treat-for-today-homemade-whole-wheat-graham-crackers by Laura at Heavenly Homemakers.

I've done some modifications, though, to please (i.e. trick) my kids into liking them (and they did)! (I like parenthesis-es). ???

Homemade Graham Cracker Shapes

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cups white flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. cinnamon

4 T. honey

1/4 cup water (I added a splash more for my dough to work)

1 t. vanilla

1 stick butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Melt stick of butter in a pan on the stove. Set aside.

3. Stir together flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.

4. Add the liquids: honey, water, vanilla, and melted butter.

5. Stir well until a ball of dough is formed. (Here is where I added a splash more water to make it form a ball.

6. Cut two pieces of parchment paper about the size of a cookie sheet.

7. Put half of dough in between the parchment paper and roll it out with a rolling pin. Roll it out so that the dough is between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick.

8. Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Put the shapes on top of a cookie sheet (which I also topped with parchment paper before I put the cookies on). Parchment paper is my new friend. My cracker cookies seemed to bake best on the airbake pan.

9. Bake for 13 - 18 minutes. Mine were done at 15. Remove to rack to cool.

10. Repeat with second half of dough.

Basic Cream Cheese Frosting (This is the original recipe, you will have lots left over. I halved it).

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 T. vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

1. Mix the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.

2. Add vanilla and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth.

NOW..... dut, dah dah DAH!!!!

Take two cracker/cookie things and put some frosting in the middle.

YUMMY!

I was very pleasantly surprised at how much these are actually like graham crackers. AND if you want chocolate grahams, just add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to your dry ingredients. However, be careful not to burn them like I did the first time. Then you will have this....
You might have a dirty sink like me, too. But the ones that did turn out were pretty good.

And the best news.... My boys loved them. I called them crispy sandwich cookies instead of crackers. And we all liked the original better than the chocolate ones. I hope you try them. I think you will like them.

Also, if you wanted to have a homemade graham cracker crust, I'll bet you could use this recipe for that. But I've never tried it. So, good luck with that.

Love, me