graham crackers
A Childhood Favorite Grows Up!
Nostalgic for this American childhood favorite, we wondered what would happen if we changed up the recipe for Graham crackers using great ingredients. What we created was an intensely flavored cookie more addictive than what we munched on as kids. In the spirit of constant improvement, we then wondered how we could make these crowd favorites even tastier. Lo and behold, the flavor boost obtained from milling our own flour from organic, soft white wheat, grown regionally in Michigan and the Midwest, was the easy answer! We love the crackers’ amped-up flavors of toasted wheat, honey, and ginger, not to mention their more hearty, crisp texture, and you will too!
Available on Thursdays & Saturdays
Some history
The original “Graham” cracker was not the tasty, sweet treat we know and love today; it was a bland, unsweetened biscuit made from finely ground, unbleached wheat flour, wheat bran, and coarsely ground germ, which also came to be known as “Graham bread.” First conceived in the 1830s, the crackers were consumed as part of a strict vegetarian and fiber-rich diet developed by the crackers’ namesake, the Reverend Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), an eccentric Presbyterian minister from Connecticut who became a social reformer and ferocious advocate of healthful living during America’s health craze of the 1820s and 1830s. Exercising some combination of pseudoscience and faith, Graham believed that physical lust was harmful to the mind, body, and spirit and that a healthy diet—devoid of alcohol, meat, fat, spices, and refined white flour—would aid in suppressing sinful carnal excess, which he saw as a genuine human affliction and the scourge of his time. His 1837 discourse, A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, published in Boston to vast popular acclaim, inspired the production of so-called graham flour, graham bread and, most famously, graham crackers.
The good Reverend’s preaching and promotional writings on maintaining a healthy, plant-based, fiber-rich diet for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being won countless converts over the course of the nineteenth century, who came to be known as “Grahamites.”
And just in case you were wondering where the Graham cracker sweet, “s’more,” comes from, the Girl Scouts seem to have had a hand in its initial dissemination, if not creation. The first recorded recipe for “Some More” was published in the organization’s 1927 hiking handbook, Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, in the chapter covering “Menus for Over-night Hikes.” It describes to a T how best to make the famed campfire treat: “Toast [not torch!] two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between halves of chocolate bar will melt the chocolate a bit.”
So go ahead and make your own s’mores with the Bakehouse’s oh-so-tasty Graham crackers and the Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory’s delectable handmade marshmallows; you’ll be a happy camper indeed!
Locally sourced ingredients: freshly milled organic soft white wheat grown regionally in Michigan and the Midwest; honey from Gearig Apiaries Honey in Ithaca, MI.
Nostalgic for this American childhood favorite, we wondered what would happen if we changed up the recipe for Graham crackers using great ingredients. What we created was an intensely flavored cookie more addictive than what we munched on as kids. In the spirit of constant improvement, we then wondered how we could make these crowd favorites even tastier. Lo and behold, the flavor boost obtained from milling our own flour from organic, soft white wheat, grown regionally in Michigan and the Midwest, was the easy answer! We love the crackers’ amped-up flavors of toasted wheat, honey, and ginger, not to mention their more hearty, crisp texture, and you will too!
Available on Thursdays & Saturdays
Some history
The original “Graham” cracker was not the tasty, sweet treat we know and love today; it was a bland, unsweetened biscuit made from finely ground, unbleached wheat flour, wheat bran, and coarsely ground germ, which also came to be known as “Graham bread.” First conceived in the 1830s, the crackers were consumed as part of a strict vegetarian and fiber-rich diet developed by the crackers’ namesake, the Reverend Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), an eccentric Presbyterian minister from Connecticut who became a social reformer and ferocious advocate of healthful living during America’s health craze of the 1820s and 1830s. Exercising some combination of pseudoscience and faith, Graham believed that physical lust was harmful to the mind, body, and spirit and that a healthy diet—devoid of alcohol, meat, fat, spices, and refined white flour—would aid in suppressing sinful carnal excess, which he saw as a genuine human affliction and the scourge of his time. His 1837 discourse, A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, published in Boston to vast popular acclaim, inspired the production of so-called graham flour, graham bread and, most famously, graham crackers.
The good Reverend’s preaching and promotional writings on maintaining a healthy, plant-based, fiber-rich diet for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being won countless converts over the course of the nineteenth century, who came to be known as “Grahamites.”
And just in case you were wondering where the Graham cracker sweet, “s’more,” comes from, the Girl Scouts seem to have had a hand in its initial dissemination, if not creation. The first recorded recipe for “Some More” was published in the organization’s 1927 hiking handbook, Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, in the chapter covering “Menus for Over-night Hikes.” It describes to a T how best to make the famed campfire treat: “Toast [not torch!] two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between halves of chocolate bar will melt the chocolate a bit.”
So go ahead and make your own s’mores with the Bakehouse’s oh-so-tasty Graham crackers and the Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory’s delectable handmade marshmallows; you’ll be a happy camper indeed!
Locally sourced ingredients: freshly milled organic soft white wheat grown regionally in Michigan and the Midwest; honey from Gearig Apiaries Honey in Ithaca, MI.