How to Make Graham Cracker Crusts

I love baking.  I learned at my mother’s knee (actually apron strings) from the time I was very little.  Cakes, cookies, candies, I’m a pro.  The one thing I cannot do is a traditional pie crust.  I have tried and failed many times.  While disappointing, the upside of my failure is that I have learned to make really good non-traditional pie crusts.  Any time I can, I will use Graham Cracker Crusts in place of traditional pastry crusts. Here are our tips and tricks on How to Make Graham Cracker Crusts!

How to Make Graham Cracker Crusts

You will need:

• 12 Full Sheets of Graham Cracker cookies
• 1/2 cup Melted Butter (Sweet Cream, Salted)
• 1/3 cup Granulated Sugar
• Plastic Baggie
• 9″ Pie Plate
• Rolling Pin

You only need three ingredients to make a delicious homemade Graham Cracker Crust – Graham Crackers, Butter and Granulated Sugar.

To make a crust for a 9″ pie plate or a 9×13″ rectangle pan place 12 graham cracker cookies in a plastic bag.  You can certainly use a food processor to crush the graham crackers but we think crusts make with bigger pieces of graham crackers taste a lot better than the fine crumbs you get when you use a food processor.  We crushed the graham crackers with a rolling pin instead.

Here are the crumbs after we’ve given them the once over with the rolling pin . Some are fine and some are larger … perfect!  Now add the 1/3 cup of sugar to the plastic bag.

Seal up the bag and give it a shake to mix up the crumbs and the sugar.

Now pour the 1/2 cup of melted butter into the plastic bag.  Use your hands to massage the melted butter into the graham cracker crumb mixture. So easy!

Pour the butter covered crumbs into your pie plate.  This is a 9″ pie plate.

Press and mold the moistened graham cracker crumbs into the pie plate.  We used the bottom of our 1/2 cup measuring up to firmly press the graham cracker crumbs against the pie plate on both the bottom and the sides of the plate.  The more tightly you can pack in the crumbs, the better the crust will hold together when you serve it.

Bake or refrigerate the crust?  This is the age old question. We almost always refrigerate the crust for a couple of hours before adding the pie filling.  During the refrigeration process, the melted butter will firm back up and help the crust hold its shape.  We think that a refrigerated Graham Cracker Crust is softer and more buttery and (we think) tastes better.  But if you like a crunchier crust, you can bake the crust for 8 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  During the baking process, the sugar will melt and that is what holds the crust together.

Graham Cracker Crusts are hands down our most favorite kind of pie crust.  They are so easy to make and we think the homemade version tastes 1000 times better than the ones you buy at the grocery story.  Give this recipe a try, we think you’ll love it!