Why You Shouldn't Forget To Chill Graham Cracker Dough

Sweet graham crackers are essential if you want to make Ina Garten's key lime pie, that recipe for campfire s'mores you found on Instagram, or if you want to throw together a cheesecake for your next book club. And while it's easy and convenient to pay a visit to your local supermarket and buy a blue and yellow box of Honey Maid graham crackers for the job, nothing quite beats the homemade variety. 

Per Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking, graham crackers are made with coarse graham flour and if you plan on making a batch, you may be pleasantly surprised to learn the ingredients are pretty simple and similar to those used to make cookies. Delighted Cooking shares that to be considered a true graham cracker, in addition to graham flour, it must be made sweet with molasses. You will find these snack-worthy crackers contain brown sugar, vanilla extract, honey, and baking soda among other ingredients.

While graham cracker-lovers aren't going to fight over how these cookie-like crackers are classified, it may give those who bake them pause and an incentive not to forget to chill their graham cracker dough when making them at home.

According to MasterClass, the trick to making graham crackers is to make certain you chill the dough for at least two hours before you begin rolling it out. Why? They say this will allow the whole wheat flour time to "hydrate." Martha Stewart concurs. According to her website, temperature matters when you are baking. When you put cookie dough in the fridge to chill, all of your ingredients work better together. The sugar has time to properly draw-out and soak-up the moisture from the flour, resulting in a dough that is more compacted and dense — and that holds together better. 

What are other advantages to chilled graham cracker dough? The same advantages when you are making roll-out cookies. Stewart's website explains that when your dough is chilled, it is less likely to spread when you are baking your cut-out cookies. But that's not all of the benefits of chilled dough. It can also enhance your graham cracker's taste. Caitlin Haught Brown told Stewart's site, "In terms of flavor, you'll notice more depth of flavor from the vanilla and the sugar will taste sweeter."