Graham Cracker Cookies

These Graham Cracker Cookies are buttery, sweet, soft, chewy, and studded with white chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers.

Try some other fun variations on this cookie recipe like these S’mores cookies or Frosted Honey Graham Cookies.

Our Favorite Easy Graham Cracker Cookies

Of all the cookie recipes on this site, my youngest sister will tell you, these are her favorite. I can’t show up to a family function without a batch, so I nearly always have some rolled-out dough balls in my freezer ready to bake and bring to her.

It’s no huge surprise she loves these cookies so much, since she’s the most graham-cracker-obsessed person I’ve ever met. She’ll eat a graham cracker crust plain (without filling — yes, really!) and steal the crusts right off these Cheesecake Bars, leaving the cheesecake part behind.

These cookies are supremely sweet, ultra-soft, and ridiculously chewy! With actual graham crackers (or at least the crumbs) in the dough, these cookies are not like your typical Chocolate Chip Cookies. The graham cracker crumbs that make up the cookie dough offer a unique toasted, almost nutty and sweet flavor. 

Let’s Chat Graham Crackers

For the cookie base, there are actual graham crackers mixed into the dough. Here are a few tips:

• Thoroughly crush the graham crackers. While you can crush the graham crackers in a bag with a rolling pin, I highly recommend a high-powered blender or food processor. It’s important to have fine crumbs without any uncrushed chunks. Larger pieces will mess up the texture of the cookies, so be sure they’re finely crushed.
• Measuring. Once the crackers are thoroughly crushed, we can get the exact measurement. Spoon the crushed crumbs into a measuring cup, making sure to fill the cup to the very top and level off the top with the back of a table knife. While the crumbs should not be packed into the measuring cup, be sure to completely fill the cup to get the right measurement.

How To Make Graham Cracker Cookies

Here are our top tips for making the best possible cookies:

• Let the melted butter cool: Once the butter melts, it needs to cool back to room temperature. If the melted butter is still hot, it will melt the sugars and cause greasy cookies that spread too much.
• Correctly measure the flour. If you press a measuring cup into a bag of flour and scoop, you will pack in way too much flour which affects the texture of these cookies. To properly measure your flour, spoon the flour into the measuring cup until it’s overfilled. Then use the back of a table knife to level the measuring cup at the top. (Video visual here) Follow this same measuring protocol for measuring out the finely crushed graham crackers.

Graham Cracker Cookies Tips

• Chill the dough. Because the butter gets melted, the dough needs time to chill so the butter can resolidify. Don’t rush the chilling time or you may find yourself with flat cookies. On the flip side, if the dough is chilled too long, it tends to dry out. The cookies also don’t spread as nicely when baking when the dough is chilled too long.
  • We recommend chilling the dough twice– once right after the dough is made, and again when the dough balls have been rolled out. Why space the chilling time out? The dough is too soft right after being made to be rolled into balls and after the balls are rolled, the dough gets a bit warm from being rolled and needs to chill through again. Cold dough balls in a hot oven will give us the perfect cookie texture.
• Use a Silpat® liner. The cookies end up with much softer bases when baked on a lined sheet pan.
• Press the edges of the cookies in. Working quickly, right out of the oven, use the back of a large spoon to press the edges of the cookies into the center. (See the picture below for a visual!). This creates great crispy edges and ensures the cookie has a nice chewy center. Work quickly, as the cookies set up quickly and resist being pressed inwards after sitting out for more than a minute or two.

Variations

• M&M graham cracker cookies: Replace the white chocolate chips for equal parts M&M’s. Or, make graham cracker chocolate chip cookies by replacing white chocolate chips with semi-sweet, dark, or milk chocolate chips.
• Graham Cracker Cookies with pecans: Replace the white chocolate chips with coarsely chopped pecans (or another similar nut — pistachios would also be tasty!).
• Graham cracker dessert bars: Try these Magic Cookie Bars, Magic Bars, or 7-Layer Bars (which are like Graham Cracker Cookies with sweetened condensed milk).
• No-bake Graham Cracker Cookies: try these No-bake Peanut Butter Bars with graham cracker crumbs or these no-bake S’mores Energy Bites instead.

Graham Cracker Cookie Storage

More cookie recipes:

• DoubleTree® Cookies with oats and chocolate chips
• Peanut Butter Cookie Dough food-safe, edible cookie dough
• Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Cookies with cinnamon-sugar topping
• Soft Sugar Cookies with cream cheese frosting
• Cornmeal Cookies with white chocolate chips

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5 from 3 votes

Graham Cracker Cookies

By Chelsea Lords

These Graham Cracker Cookies are buttery, sweet, soft, chewy, and studded with white chocolate chips and crushed graham crackers.

Prep Time: 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 11 minutes minutes

Chilling Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 56 minutes minutes

Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients 

USMetric

 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 3/4 cup unsalted butter (12 tablespoons, or 1 1/2 sticks)
• ▢ 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• ▢ 3/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed (Note 1)
• ▢ 1 large egg YOLK (discard or save the whites)
• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 and 3/4 cups white, all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda (Note 2)
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• ▢ 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 9 full sheets) (Note 3)
• ▢ 1 cup white chocolate chips
• ▢ 5-6 full graham cracker sheets, optional for topping cookies with

Instructions 

• BUTTER AND SUGARS: Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave. Set aside and cool to room temperature, about 5 minutes. ( If the butter is hot when it is added to the sugars, it will melt the sugars and cause greasy cookies.) Once butter is cooled, scrape every bit of it into a large bowl. Add in the brown and white sugar. Whisk briskly until completely incorporated, smooth, and combined-- about 1-2 minutes.
• EGGS AND VANILLA: Add in 1 full egg and then 1 egg yolk (discard the whites or save for another recipe). Add in the vanilla. Stir until smooth.
• DRY INGREDIENTS: In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add full graham crackers to a blender or food processor and crush until you have 1 cup (117g) of very fine crumbs (gently add to the measuring cup; don't pack it in). Add the graham cracker crumbs to the dry ingredients. Stir everything to combine.
• COMBINE: Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just combined, avoiding overmixing. Add in white chocolate chips and stir to incorporate.
• CHILL: Cover the bowl tightly and chill the dough for 1 hour and up to 8 hours.
• ROLL COOKIE DOUGH BALLS: Using a tablespoon measuring spoon, form balls of dough using 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie (45g if you have a food scale). Roll the cookie dough balls large and tall (rather than wide). Place on a parchment-paper-lined plate and chill again for 20 minutes.
• BAKE: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and line a pan with parchment paper or a Silpat liner. Space 6 cookies per cookie sheet (to allow PLENTY of room for spread; they spread a lot). Bake for 10-14 minutes or until ever-so-slightly browned at the edges or no longer gooey looking on top. Remove from the oven and immediately use a spoon or the back of a spatula to press the edges of each cookie into the center. (See video or photos). Work quickly, because the cookies harden fast. This will give each cookie a great crispy edge.
• DECORATE: After pressing in the edges, press a few additional white chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies. Coarsely break up a few additional graham crackers and press small pieces onto the tops of the cookies to decorate/garnish. Let cookies stand on the tray for 4 more minutes then use a spatula to remove the cookies from the sheet pan to a cooling rack.

Video

Recipe Notes

Note 1: Brown Sugar: Use very fresh and soft brown sugar without clumps.

Note 2: Baking Soda: Ensure baking soda is fresh before using.

Note 3: Graham cracker crumbs: Blend in a high-powered blender to get fine crumbs -- reblend any larger chunks. Spoon the crumbs into a measuring cup and level at the top to get the correct measurement.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 214kcal | Carbohydrates: 30.8g | Protein: 2.5g | Fat: 9.2g | Cholesterol: 32.2mg | Sodium: 87.9mg | Fiber: 0.9g | Sugar: 17.2g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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