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Graham Flour Crackers
Mix one quart of graham flour and one breakfast cupful of Indian meal and one teaspoonful of salt, and stir in sufficient water to make a stiff dough. Roll this out very thin, cut it into squares, and lay them on a baking-sheet; dock them and bake in a quick oven. The crackers may be sweetened if desired.
A plain unleavened cracker of the sort that came out of the nineteenth-century health-food movement rather than the pastry kitchen. Two things decide whether it works: how thin you roll it and how briefly it bakes.
- Roll it thinner than feels rightWith no leavening and no fat, thickness is the only variable that separates a cracker from a brick. Aim for about 1/16 inch, rolling directly on the parchment or baking sheet so you do not have to transfer flimsy squares.
- Graham flourCoarse-ground whole wheat with the bran and germ left in. Modern whole-wheat flour is the closest common substitute; stone-ground whole wheat is closer still. It drinks more water than white flour, so add liquid gradually.
- Indian mealCornmeal. Use a fine or medium yellow grind; coarse grits-style meal will stay gritty in a dough that is never boiled or long-hydrated.
- The measuresA quart of flour is 4 cups, roughly 16-18 oz of graham. A breakfast cupful was a large cup, variously reckoned at about 8 to 10 fl oz, so figure something over a cup of cornmeal. Water will land somewhere near 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups depending on the flour.
- Dock themPricking each square through with a fork keeps steam from lifting the dough into blisters. Do it after cutting, and do not skip it.
- A quick ovenConventionally reckoned around 400-425F. At that heat thin squares are done in roughly 8 to 12 minutes; pull them when the edges brown and the centres look dry. They crisp further as they cool, so a cracker that seems slightly soft on the sheet is usually right.
- If sweeteningTwo to three tablespoons of sugar or a little molasses worked into the dough is in keeping with the period. Sugar browns fast at this temperature, so check a few minutes early.
- Yield and keepingThis quantity makes a very large batch, many dozens of two-inch crackers depending on how thin you roll. Cool completely before storing airtight or the residual steam will soften them.
Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the Presbyterian minister and temperance lecturer whose 1830s campaign for coarse unbolted wheat, cold water and plain living made whole-meal bread a moral question in American households. By the time Oscar Tschirky assembled his cook book in 1896, "graham" had settled down from a crusade into an ordinary pantry item, and graham crackers, gems and bread turn up in general household manuals of the period as digestible, unfussy fare. The addition of Indian meal -- "Indian corn," and hence "Indian meal," being the long-standing American way of naming maize and its meal, since "corn" in British usage meant grain in general -- is a thoroughly domestic touch, adding sandiness and a little sweetness to a dough that has nothing else in it. Note how far this is from the modern graham cracker: no honey, no shortening, no leavening, and sugar only as an afterthought.