Graham crackers, and tragedy

I woke up yesterday morning in a bad mood. On the wrong side of the bed, both figuratively and literally. With a pain in my neck that only got worse when I got out of bed.  In the middle of a bad dream, the only clear event of which I can remember was going to a wine tasting and getting locked all alone in the tasting room with no wine.

So it was not exactly the best time to try rolling out a very sticky dough and then conducting on it a somewhat exact and time-consuming process. It was worth it, considering how great these crackers turned out, but at the time I actually didn’t think they were going very well and the whole rolling out process made me very angry. So angry, in fact, that after I filled my two baking sheets I threw away the other 1/3 of the dough.

I threw it away.

I. Threw. It. Away.

Let’s not dwell on this, but seriously – what was I thinking?

I’m a big lover of graham crackers, but unfortunately pretty much just the everyday supermarket kind (the kind peeking in the edge of that photo above, which was very stale but which I used as a guide for making dots, because I was too out of sorts to come up with my own dots). You know, the kind from a major corporation, filled with lots of additives. Delicious additives. The kinds go incredibly well with peanut butter and a glass of milk. The other kinds tend to be too wheaty, or too crispy, or too molasses-y.

But these graham crackers I made are not any of those things and don’t have any of those additives. These are perfect. And I threw away 1/3 of the dough, because I had a pain in my neck and a cloud over my head on a chilly Sunday morning.

I made up for all of this tragedy by making the world’s tiniest batch of cream cheese frosting (2 Tbsp. cream cheese, 1 Tbsp. softened butter, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, a few Tbsp. powdered sugar, into the mini-Cuisinart. Now you know you can do that, and there’s no looking back.) and putting out a plate of these crackers and some little bowls of the frosting and of peanut butter for my book club meeting yesterday. Piece of advice: If I’m coming over to your house, you should do this. I will be happy! And a happy Bowen is a pretty fun Bowen, and we could all use a little more fun in our lives these days.

Speaking of which: I’m off to the Homeland for the long weekend, to celebrate the marriage of one of my oldest and best friends to another one of my close friends from high school. It will be a huge gathering of many dear friends who I don’t see nearly enough, and we will dance ourselves silly. Five days after getting back from that, Brett and I are headed off to Europe for our anniversary, so it’s likely there won’t be much activity around here for a while. While I’m gone I’ll take lots of photos of Wienerschnitzel and Sachertorte and steins of Bier larger than my head, and will share upon returning (the photos – definitely not the beer).  Pinky swear.

Graham crackers
I used Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, which is in turn from Nancy Silverton and is right here. I didn’t really adapt it at all, so will just direct you there. I included 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour, but I’m sure they’re just as good without that swap.  I also didn’t include the sugar/cinnamon topping, since I never buy that type of graham cracker, but will try that next time.