I’ve been in denial about this whole “November” thing. And this whole dark-at-5pm-thing. Ouch. The fall season is passing before my eyes. Suddenly, the nights feel super long and I’m going a bit stir crazy. Instead of resisting it, I’ve taken up evening hot yoga a few times a week. It just feels so good to have a deep stretch this time of the year and it’s a great reason to get off the couch at night. My sleep has felt a bit more restorative, so that’s always a plus too!
If there’s any ingredient that makes me set aside my November denial and embrace the cool weather, it’s blackstrap molasses. It’s been a long time since I did any baking with it and it always feels special when I dig it out from the back of the cupboard. A powerhouse sweetener filled with iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, vitamin B6, and more, it also lends a seasonal baking flair to baked goods. Plus, your entire kitchen fills with that delicious aroma of the holidays. It’s really something magical.
Today, I’m sharing another reader request recipe. Jessie recently wrote in saying:
“Hi Angela, I have a special favor to ask you. As a Vancouver girl, I am DYING to make your vegan Nanaimo bars but I can’t find gluten free and vegan graham crumbs to swap for the regular ones. I can’t eat any gluten. Any ideas?”
Jessie is right, I do have a handful of recipes that call for graham cracker crumbs. A few of them:
- Classic Nanaimo Bars
- PB & Jelly Nanaimo Bars
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
- Mini Peanut Butter Cups in a Jar
It’s true that there aren’t many vegan and gluten-free crackers on the market. At least, I haven’t been able to find any in my local grocery stores. And if there are any, do they even taste good? So, I took matters into my own hands and came up with a go-to graham cracker for the holidays! And dare I say, they are respectable enough for a mid-morning snack. Dipped in a little Lightened Up Raw Pecan Pumpkin Butter…wow, just wow. I can’t get enough.
After several trials, I’m happy to report that these crackers are authentic and crispy, made with wholesome flours, and are free of gums and strange ingredients commonly found in gluten-free baked goods. They have such a wonderful crumb to them. And when I say crispy, I really do mean crispy! These are not soft, doughy graham cracker imposters here…no way.
You know how store-bought gluten-free baked goods can have that funky taste and texture thing going on? Well, it is possible to do gluten-free and vegan right. It’s just a matter of using the right combination of flours and other ingredients. A strong will (read: stubbornness) and patience (read: sweet tooth) never hurts either. Luckily, I have both. And now my freezer is stocked with grahams for many weeks to come.
Vegan and Gluten-Free Graham Crackers
Yield
25 (2-inch) crackers
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Crispy, authentic graham crackers made gluten-free and vegan! Now you can make them in the comfort of your own home. When rolling the dough, I suggest using a non-stick baking mat and a non-stick rolling pin, if you have them. It really makes rolling a breeze. If you don't have those, not to worry; a floured counter and rolling pin will do just fine. I used gluten-free all-purpose flour to flour the mat and pin. It's normal for the dough to crack slightly when rolling, so if this happens simply mend the crack with your fingers and forge on! Don't worry about getting them perfect. When the crackers come out of the oven they will be a bit soft, but within 15 minutes on the cooling rack they will firm up into crispy delights! I know I'm going to get questions about a nut-free recipe, and I don't have one to share yet, but I will try my best to come up with one. In the meantime, check out the Vegan Graham Crackers recipe from 2010 (you can sub the almond milk for a nut-free milk to make it nut-free).
Ingredients
wet ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil (melt before using) or grapeseed oil
- 3 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- 2 tablespoons almond milk
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1/2 tablespoon ground flax
dry ingredients:
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons almond flour (not almond meal)
- 1/2 cup raw buckwheat groats, processed into a flour
- 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats, processed into a flour
- 5 tablespoons arrowroot flour
- 2 tablespoons Sucanat (or other granulated sweetener)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.
- Add the buckwheat groats and rolled oats into a high-speed blender and blend on high until a fine flour forms.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir well with a spoon until it comes together and there are no dry patches of flour left.
- Form the dough into 2-3 balls and place one at a time on a lightly floured non-stick mat. Lightly flour a rolling pin (if necessary) and begin rolling out the dough until you have a rectangle that is about 1/8 inch thick. The dough will crack a bit, but this is totally normal.
- Cut the crackers into the shapes of your choice using cookie cutters, a pizza slicer/pastry slicer, or a knife to cut the shapes you want. I used a 2-inch square cutter with a beveled edge. Place each piece onto the baking sheet, leaving 1/2-inch between each. Poke a few fork holes into each cracker. Repeat with the remaining dough.
- Bake for 10 minutes and then remove from oven and carefully flip each cracker with a spatula. Rotate the pan and return to the oven for 6-7 minutes longer, until golden. Carefully, transfer crackers to a cooling rack for 15 minutes.
- Store crackers in a glass jar or container on the counter or wrap up and freeze for later.
Tip:
- 1 batch of graham crackers will make about 3 cups graham cracker crumbs. To make the crumbs, add the crackers into a food processor and process until a fine crumb forms.
- I haven't tested these crackers with almond meal yet, so I suggest using almond flour for best results. You can find almond flour in the natural food section of most grocery stores or you can make it yourself by blending whole blanched almonds until a flour forms. Sift before using.
- If you aren't looking for a gluten-free graham cracker, see my vegan graham cracker recipe and my PB & J graham cracker sandwiches.
- If you prefer a less crispy cracker, bake for a few minutes less time.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
By the way, a huge thank you for your lovely comments on my Canadian cover reveal post! I’m so touched by your excitement. Thanks to your pre-orders, The Oh She Glows Cookbook has been dancing around the #1 spot in the vegan cookbook category on Amazon.ca this weekend. Big, big smiles. Thanks again for all your support!
Hi I would love to buy your books what are they called and is buckweat goats ? gluten ? what can I subtitute them for ? thanks
Let me just echo my thanks!!! I have missed out on graham crackers for such a long time….Hooray!! You are so creative and talented. xx
My kids even liked these, which is a rare event!
I would LOVE to make these. I am vegan and celaic and I thought I would never be able to have grahm crackers again BUT I am also allergic to almonds. Would another flour work in it’s place?
Thanks so much!
Thanks so much for the great recipe! I tried it out and I felt like I needed to double the amount of wet ingredients for all the dry ingredients I had to be able to obtain the same amount of moisture in the dough that you had in your pictures.
I checked your Vegan Graham cracker recipe and it seems like your dry ingredients seemed less in volume? I would love to know what I’m doing wrong! Thanks for your help!
I forgot to mention, I made a couple of substitutions, I used Hemp Milk instead of Almond Milk, and then I used Sorghum flour in place of Almond Flour to make it nut free also!
Hi Lily, My guess is that it was the change in flour – GF baking is very sensitive to flour changes unfortunately. I find almond flour creates a wetter batter usually.
Thank you Angela for your response! If I need to use more wet ingredients, do you think the right thing to do would be just to double the wet ingredients that you have there? I don’t necessarily want to make it much sweeter, just wetter! :) Substitutions are hard, especially if you don’t know what the original product tasted/looked/felt like in the first place! :P
I appreciate your response. Thank you!
Another thought would be to make the dough without the sorghum flour (almond flour substitute) and then add in the sorghum flour tbs by tbs to try to achieve the same moist type of dough that is in your pictures.
I don’t have buckwheat groats, flax seeds, or molasses. Also no chia seeds to replace the flax. I’d love to make them tonight, though! Any replacement ideas? Thanks!
I have been in love with your blog for a couple of years now and its gotten me through some tricky situations when I needed some inspiration for feeding my family which has dietary restrictions for health and wellness reasons. This is a great recipe for my 10month old and I would love to see other options that are toddler/baby friendly :-)
Looks so yummy! Do you have a substitute suggestion for buckwheat groats and do you think I can substitute molasses with coconut butter? Thanks for any help…
I took advantage of the first snowy day in Maryland and made these graham crackers. As with every other recipe from Angela that I’ve tried so far it was very easy to follow. My dough did not look as moist or smooth as the pictures in the post the results are great!! I love these crackers and will be making then again soon.
Hi Angela
I am going to try this recipe and then also make some of your other recipes that need the graham crackers. I was wondering about the buckwheat groats and oats. Can I just use buckwheat flour and oat flour or will that change the recipe too much?
For people who were looking for an almond flour substitute, I used ground sunflower seeds and substituted by volume (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons). The dough was very easy to work with and these turned out delicious and the texture was fantastic. If you grind sunflower seeds, just make sure you use small batches because it goes from meal to butter in an instant. (Some parts of my ground seeds were a bit wetter than I would have liked, but it made no difference in the recipe.) Angela, if I refer back to this site, do you mind my posting the recipe on my own blog? We are not vegan or entirely gluten free, but my son is allergic to dairy and eggs and barley (previously wheat as well), so my website, in the last year, has focused primarily on allergy-free food.
Sure, be my guest! Thanks for letting me know your trial worked :)
can these crackers be dehydrated instead of baked?
My daughter has Celiac disease and several other allergies, one of them being oats. Is there something else I could use to substitute for the oats?
I really want to try making these for her-they look delicious!
Hi Amy, You might be able to try swapping it for another gluten-free flour, but I haven’t tried anything else yet so it would be an experiment. Let me know if you try anything out.
Hi There!
What a great recipe! I often have a really hard time finding anything in the stores that I can eat when it comes to crackers, breads, etc so thank you for this recipe!
I do have one question for you. Have you tried, or what do you think about trying to make this recipe with honey or another sweetene? I’m wondering because in addition to being gluten free, dairy-free and egg-free (casein allergy), I’m also allergic to sugar cane (and it’s by-products, including molasses). I’d love to hear your thoughts!!
Thanks again for all the great recipes – you’re definitely one of my go-to blogs for all things delicious and nutritious! Keep it up!
Yum, made these and really enjoyed them. Subtle sweetness and the smell when they are baking was really good on this snowy day. Will make these again.
Hey there! This looks like a great recipe– however, I am not into cooking gluten-free at all. Can I use regular flour to replace all of those exotic flours in there?
Hi Jenna,
I have a couple non-GF graham cracker recipes on my blog already – I linked to them in my recipe so check those out. Hope this helps!
Hi, Can I substitute an all-purpose gluten free flour instead of making it with the nut flours?
Can I just use buckwheat flour? If so, how much … or, is it necessary to grind the groats into flour.
Thanks,
sadie
I swapped arrowroot wih tapioca and had no problems. I’m going to try it with honey instead of molasses and no spices to see if I can get a more authentic graham cracker taste. Will keep you posted.
Kinickinick makes the best gluten free graham crackers I have ever tried. Even better than what I remember gluten graham crackers were like if you do not want to make this recipe.