Cause I wanted to see if I could.
It turns out they weren't any harder than making cookies. The hardest part was rolling them very very thin. I wound up making graham crackers from the recipe over at Culinary Adventures in the Kitchen. I chose that particular recipe because it was so unusual. It uses whole wheat flour instead of white, and instead of butter, the fat is olive oil.
No one could taste the olive oil in the crackers. I'm not sure if that was because they just don't taste olive oil-y, or because I sprinkled the tops of the crackers with a cinnamon sugar blend that had orange zest in it. All you could really taste was the orange cinnamon goodness.
But it wasn't enough to just make the Graham crackers. Nope. I had to take it one step further. I made them into "ice cream" bars using sweet puddin'head filling, an idea I pilfered from Not Just Cute. Sweet puddin'head is basically a mixture of Cool Whip and pudding. I used sugar free vanilla pudding mix and Lite Cool Whip, cause that makes it healthy, doncha know. And we are all about the healthy desserts in this house. (Insert eye roll here.)
What is great about these frozen goodies is that they don't turn into a brick after chilling. They firm up nicely in the freezer, but aren't so rock hard that a child with two missing front teeth couldn't consume them. It did take the toothless child a considerable amount of time to eat her ice cream bar, but I am not entirely certain that had anything to do with her lack of pearly whites.
While I won't be making the graham crackers again this summer, (unless we get another cool spell,) I will make these treats again with store bought crackers. I can't wait to try other pudding flavors. I'm particularly looking forward to the cheesecake pudding flavor.
Graham Crackers from Culinary Adventures in the Kitchen
2 cups whole-wheat flour
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup honey
2-3 tablespoons milk
additional milk for glaze
cinnamon-sugar (optional)
In a mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. In a separate bowl, beat egg till light, then add oil, honey and 2 T milk. Stir into dry ingredients until you have a fairly stiff dough, adding additional milk if necessary. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm, about 1 hour (or longer, if it’s more convenient). Preheat your oven to 375°F. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently until it holds together. Roll dough out till it’s about 1/16-inch thick; make sure rolling surface is well-floured, or you’ll have trouble transferring crackers to baking sheet. Cut dough into 3" squares (or cut out using cookie cutters), prick each square several times with a fork, and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Brush tops with milk, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and bake 15-20 min, til crackers are lightly browned. Remove crackers from oven, transfer to a wire cooling rack, and cool completely.
Sweet Puddin'head from Not Just Cute
8oz cool whip or similar
1 package of pudding mix
half milk suggested on pudding box
Combine milk and pudding until thick. Fold in cool whip. This recipe is actually just a guideline. Use any combination or size of cool whip or pudding. You can even add some cream cheese if that suits your fancy.
Just try not to eat the whole bowl in one sitting. Save some for ice cream sandwiches!
I stuck the filling in a zip bag and piped them onto the crackers. This made things a lot less messy for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave me a little comment. Comments are like candy. Tasty tasty validating candy!