Salted Graham Cracker Cookies are the new shortbread. Simple, sweet, and salty with a sandy texture, they’re perfect just plain as an afternoon snack with a cup of herbal tea. Add a topping of fruit, chocolate or sweetened cream cheese to turn them into tiny tartlets for an easy yet dazzling dessert. Or crumble them into pieces to sprinkle over ice cream, fruit, custard, or anything else you can think of.
I may have mentioned that whenever I make a pie with a graham cracker crust, such as Key Lime Pie, the crust is John’s favorite part. Every now and then he would even wish out loud for a cookie or a bar made just from graham cracker crust with no topping. I wasn’t sold right away – I like the contrast between the crumbly crust and creamy filling – but I did start making my graham cracker crusts thicker and heftier, more of an equal partner rather than just a vehicle for the filling.
Then one night I made peach parfaits from a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine. The parfaits were good but it was the topping of salty sweet graham cracker crumbs that blew us away. John raved, and started snacking on the crumbs alone, no ice cream or fruit required. It was obvious these crumbs deserved to be a recipe of their own, and that there would be endless ways to use them.
At first I experimented with using the crumbs with different flavors of ice cream and varieties of fruit toppings, like in these Apple Crumb Sundaes. But I kept thinking about John’s wish for a cookie.
It was easy to form cookie shapes by pressing the crumbs into the cups of a muffin tin. I knew John would love them plain, but I wanted to have some fun with toppings, and decided to try turning the cookies into tiny tartlets.
First was Key Lime, naturally. Keeping the focus on the graham cracker cookie meant using just a tiny bit of key lime pie topping on each tartlet. Key Lime Pie filling is a custard that must be baked, so for these tartlets I added the topping halfway through the baking time; I left the rest of the cookies plain so I could play around with other topping combinations once they came out of the oven. Chocolate with peanut butter, sweetened cream cheese with berries, and Nutella with banana were all amazing. You could make a whole batch of one variety, or mix it up and make a few of each. And don’t stop with just these ideas – the possibilities for riffing are infinite.
No matter what you’re making – cookies, crumbs or tartlets – it starts the same way with the graham cracker mixture. Scroll down for recipes for the four tartlet combinations featured in this post, and some more ideas for using the versatile crumbs.
Salted Graham Cracker Cookies or Crumbs
Ingredients
- 5 graham crackers (one cracker = one full sheet with four rectangular sections)
- 1/3 cup (1 3/8 ounces or 40 grams) all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt, such as Fleur de Sel or Maldon
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 325. Crumble the graham crackers into large pieces and put them in the bowl of a food processor along with the flour and sugar. Process the mixture until the crackers are finely ground. Pour the crumb mixture into a medium bowl.
- Step 2 Add the butter and stir with a fork until all the crumbs are evenly moistened with butter.
- Step 3 If you’re making cookies, divide the crumb mixture evenly among the cups of a 12-cup muffin tin. Press gently with your fingers to flatten the crumbs. Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of the sea salt. If you’re making crumbs, dump the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Separate the crumbs into clumps about the size of a large cookie, forming them into loose circles. Sprinkle each clump with sea salt, making sure to go all the way out to the edges so that every crumb will have salt once they’re broken up.
- Step 4 Bake the cookies or clumps of crumbs for 20 minutes, or until they’re set and dry and the edges are deep golden brown. Watch closely for the last few minutes to make sure the edges don’t get too dark.
- Step 5 Transfer the muffin tin or baking sheet to a cooling rack and allow the cookies or crumbs to cool completely. For cookies, gently nudge the tip of a knife between the edge of a cookie and the side of the muffin cup, to pop the cookie out. For crumbs, gently break the clumps apart into crumbles and pieces of various sizes.
- Step 6 Use the cookies or crumbs right away, or transfer them to an airtight container to keep for up to 2 weeks.
Salted Graham Cracker Tartlets with Key Lime Topping
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Salted Graham Cracker Cookies
- ½ cup sweetened condensed milk (about ½ of a 14-ounce can)
- ¼ cup Key lime or other lime juice
- 2 large eggs
- Grated zest from one Persian (conventional green) lime
Directions
- Step 1 Prepare the Salted Graham Cracker Cookies and bake them halfway, for 10 minutes.
- Step 2 Meanwhile, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, eggs, and half of the grated lime zest.
- Step 3 After the cookies have baked for 10 minutes, remove the muffin tin from the oven. Spoon the lime topping over the cookies, dividing it evenly. Put the muffin tin back in the oven and bake for 10 more minutes.
- Step 4 Let the tartlets cool completely in the pan. When the tartlets are cool, pop them out of the muffin cups by inserting a knife down the side of the tartlet between the tartlet and the side of the muffin cup, then gently lifting them out. Sprinkle the cooled tartlets with the remaining lime zest.
- Step 5 Serve at room temperature or chill the tartlets for 2 hours or up to 6 hours and serve cold.
- Step 6 The cookie bases can be made ahead by up to a week but the tartlets should be assembled the day of serving.
Salted Graham Cracker Tartlets with Banana Nutella Topping
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Salted Graham Cracker Cookies
- ½ cup Nutella
- 1 banana
Directions
- Step 1 Prepare the Salted Graham Cracker Cookies, bake them until done, and cool them completely.
- Step 2 Smear each cookie with some of the Nutella, dividing it evenly. Slice the banana into 12 slices and arrange one banana slice on top of each tartlet.
- Step 3 Serve at room temperature or chilled. To serve them chilled, add the Nutella topping and chill for 2 hours or up to 6 hours, then add the bananas just before serving. The cookie bases can be made ahead by up to a week but the tartlets should be assembled the day of serving.
Salted Graham Cracker Tartlets with Blackberry Cheesecake Topping
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Salted Graham Cracker Cookies
- 8 ounces whipped cream cheese
- ¾ cup (3 ounces or 90 grams) confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 12 large blackberries (or 12 small strawberries, or 24 raspberries or blueberries)
Directions
- Step 1 Prepare the Salted Graham Cracker Cookies, bake them until done, and cool them completely.
- Step 2 Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract, and stir until smooth. Chill the cream cheese mixture while the cookies bake and cool.
- Step 3 Once the cookies are cool, spread each cookie with some of the cream cheese topping, dividing it evenly. Arrange the fruit over the topping.
- Step 4 Serve immediately, or chill the tartlets for 2 hours or up to 6 hours and serve cold.
- Step 5 The cookie bases can be made ahead by up to a week but the tartlets should be assembled the day of serving.
Salted Graham Cracker Tartlets with Chocolate Peanut Butter Topping
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Salted Graham Cracker Cookies
- 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- 6 tablespoons peanut butter
- ¼ cup (1 ounce or 30 grams) confectioner’s sugar
Directions
- Step 1 Prepare the Salted Graham Cracker Cookies, bake them until done, and cool them completely.
- Step 2 As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, melt the chocolate (in the microwave on 50% power, or over low heat on the stove). in a medium bowl, mash together the peanut butter and confectioner’s sugar to make a thick paste.
- Step 3 Let the cookies cool, and while they’re cooling the chocolate will also cool and thicken slightly. Once the cookies are cooled, spread each cookie with some of the peanut butter filling, dividing it evenly. Dollop the melted chocolate over the filling.
- Step 4 Chill the tartlets for 15 minutes to just set the chocolate, or 2 hours or up to 6 hours if you want to serve them cold.
- Step 5 The cookie bases can be made ahead by up to a week but the tartlets should be assembled the day of serving.
Salted Graham Cracker Crumbs can be used in an infinite number of ways to elevate fruit and/or creamy dairy bases into fantastic desserts. Sprinkle them on top of (or under, or throughout) any one of these possibilities:
- Apple Crumb Sundaes
- Meyer Lemon Cream (fold Meyer Lemon Curd into whipped cream and top with crumbs)
- No-bake cheesecake filling and Blueberry Topping
- Coffee ice cream and hot fudge sauce
- Pumpkin ice cream and caramel sauce
This post and recipe have been updated since originally posted in October, 2019. The crumbs were inspired by Peach Parfaits with Salted Graham Cracker Crumbs in Bon Appetit, August 2016.
