Homemade Graham Crackers

To see how this relates to homeschooling, you’ll have to stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, but for today I’m just sharing a couple recipes our family enjoys.

When we lived in Australia (Hubby and I lived there 12+ years. The kids were all born there. You can see more about our life in Australia in the “Where We Live” category. It should say ‘where we liveD’ now that we live in the US!) — okay back to graham crackers! When we lived in central Australia we couldn’t buy graham crackers. One year we came back for a visit to the States with little baby LD and he fell in love with graham crackers. Not wanting to pay their weight in gold for shipping graham crackers 10,000 miles, I found a graham cracker recipe I could make at home. It turns out they are very easy to make and don’t have any strange, uncalled for ingredients.

I found the recipe online, but that was about 8 years ago, so I don’t have the original link. Sorry. Here is how we make them:

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour (I now use “white whole wheat because it sounds healthier, though I don’t know that for sure)

3 1/2 cups wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon (I put a generous amount in so it’s more like 3/4 tsp)

1 cup butter (I usually soften it in the microwave for 25 secs)

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup molasses

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup water

Mix all the ingredients and then roll it out thin with a rolling pin.  Cut into squares (or cut out with shapes if you’d like).

Bake for about 10-15 minutes around 350 degrees (170C). The edges will be very slightly brown.

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 Actually the blackberry pie has nothing to do at all with homeschooling except that we eat. Often and a lot!

Blackberries were on sale for $1.00 each at our local grocery store.  I snapped up four containers and made a blackberry pie.  I used this Blackberry Pie Recipe from Allrecipes.com.  The pie was fabulous and it was pretty easy to make requiring just a few ingredients.

I used my grandma’s old recipe for making a pie crust: 3 cups flour, 1 cup butter (softened in the microwave for 18 secs), 1 tsp salt. I used my (very clean) hands to mix the butter, flour and salt (squishing it together). Then I drizzled in enough milk to have the dough stick together. Do not over knead because you want the crust light and flaky. I beat an egg and brushed a bit of egg on the top which is what gives the pie that shiny sheen. Yum!