Nearly every day after arriving home from middle school, I dropped my backpack on the floor next to the kitchen table and walked straight into the pantry to rummage around for a snack. Mom had designated an entire shelf to quick grab-and-go finger foods, located at just the right height for short preteens to stare at and reach.
In addition to the packaged chewy chocolate chip cookies and fudgy cupcakes, that shelf held a wide variety of less sugary snacks: mini pretzel twists, fruit-filled granola bars, Goldfish, Triscuits and Wheat Thins. Although the big one-pound bags of pretzels usually disappeared in less than a week between my younger brother and me, the crackers were always a popular choice too.
We’d alternate between craving the simple woven wheat style of the larger Triscuits and the slightly sweeter, less messy Wheat Thins. I generally preferred the latter, mainly because they were smaller and I could eat more! But regardless of which snack we chose, we’d set the box in the middle of the kitchen table and take turns politely reaching in to grab a few crackers while starting on our homework.
Eventually, my brother and I started gravitating towards healthier snacks like fresh fruit or veggies with dip, so Mom stopped buying quite so many boxes of kid-friendly crackers at the store. Instead, those were replaced by more “adult” tasting varieties from Trader Joe’s flavored with rosemary, thyme, and other herbs for Dad to snack on at night.
However, with this recent heat wave (106°F in September??), my family and I lost the desire to cook dinners, and we turned to lots of salads or smorgasbord evening meals instead. Because my dad still enjoys his nightly crackers, albeit with gourmet goat cheese and Brie lately, I decided to bravely turn on the oven and bake these Homemade Wheat Thins for him!
Although I probably should’ve made a double batch… It turns out my brother loves them too and has been snacking on them in the afternoons!
Truth be told, these aren’t quite exactly like Wheat Thins. When I looked at the ingredients list and saw three different kinds of sugar, I knew I could make my recipe healthier! So we’re trading the processed ingredients for 100% wholesome ones, which means this DIY version is clean eating friendly.
Even better, these require just 5 ingredients, all of which you probably stash in your pantry already! Whole wheat flour, salt, coconut oil, maple syrup, and water. That’s it! I skipped baking powder or baking soda because I prefer my crackers to be nice and flat, instead of puffy and raised in the center. That look is fine on my cupcakes, but… I’ll keep my crackers thin, thanks!
The secret to crunchy crackers is to roll them out as thin as possible. Aim for less than 1/16”, if you can! I always roll mine out with a silicone rolling pin because that has a non-stick and more even surface than wooden ones, and I do it right on the silicone baking mat on which I plan on baking the crackers.
My other trick is to slice the flattened cracker dough into squares using a pizza cutter! It results in straighter lines than a knife, but either will work.
Then pop the tray in the oven, wait impatiently, and snack to your heart’s content!
| Homemade Wheat Thins | | Print |
- 1 cup (120g) whole wheat flour (measured correctly)
- ½ tsp salt, divided
- 1 tsp coconut oil, melted
- 2 tbsp (30mL) pure maple syrup, room temperature
- ¼ cup (60mL) water, room temperature
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the center. Pour in the coconut oil, maple syrup, and water. Stir until all of the flour mixture is fully incorporated.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured silicone baking mat, and lightly knead a few times. Roll the dough into a 1/16” thick rectangle. Slice the dough into squares using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife. Prick the center of each square with a fork, and sprinkle with the remaining salt. Slide the silicone baking mat onto a baking sheet, at bake at 350°F for 28-32 minutes or until crunchy. Cool the crackers on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before serving.
For a gluten-free version, use this recipe instead or the following gluten-free flour blend: ½ cup (60g) millet flour, ¼ cup (30g) tapioca flour, ¼ cup (30g) brown rice flour, and ½ teaspoon xanthan gum.
{vegan, clean eating, low fat, low calorie}
Amy, thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I always need a crunchy snack and these really fit the bill. Thanks for the tips on how to get nice crunchy crackers. These look awesome.
Great recipe, this guy on league of legends sent it to me!
I’m so glad you enjoyed these homemade wheat thins, Jacob! Thanks for taking the time to let me know! 🙂
Can I substitute the flour with oat flour? And do you think olive oil and honey would work for a substitute? I have those ingredients instead of the grain/wheat flour, coconut oil, and maple syrup
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe, Kiri! I’ve actually answered your question about honey in the Notes section of the recipe (located directly underneath the Instructions!). I know it can be easy to miss! 😉 Olive oil is perfectly fine to use. If you’d like to use oat flour, be very careful when measuring it. It tends to be more absorbent than wheat flour, so even a little too much can dry out the dough. If that happens to you, you can add a bit more water until you’re able to fully incorporate all of the flour. 🙂
I’d love to hear what you think of these homemade wheat thins if you end up making them!
Ahhh okay sorry, I will read the notes next time 😅😅 but thank you. I will be making these soon!!!!
No worries whatsoever, Kiri! It happens ALL the time. 😉 I’m so excited to hear what you think of these crackers!!
Thank you, it of course doesn’t taste exactly like wheat thins. However, its a creative, yummy and great way to snack on something similar and more wholesome. I would say these are true wheat thins since they are the less processed version. I appreciate the hard work it took to write down all these steps and such!
These true wheat thins—they taste really good! I just had one cooled down and it is so tasty!
I’m glad you enjoyed these homemade wheat thins, Sabrina! You’re so kind to take the time to let me know and give my recipe 5 stars. That really means a lot!!
You are supper expert in baking am really like your baking strategies these are supper cool
Am try this new one soon
I can’t wait to hear what you think of these crackers Emaa! 🙂
Well SHOOT, I TRIED to make the wheat thins BUT it just did not work out. I went step by step and even used my scale to measure. I took them out after 21 minutes and they were burnt or hard as a rock. SHOOT. I have a bran new stove so I know it is cooking at the right temp. WHAT IN THE HECK Happened???? hahahah I was so looking forward to them. especially now that those crackers are hard to even get with the change they are going threw. any suggestion??? thank you
It means so much that you tried my recipe, Randi! That sounds disappointing and not like how these crackers should turn out, so I’m happy to help figure out what happened. In order to do so, I have some questions for you. 🙂
Did you make any substitutions or modifications to the recipe, including those listed in the Notes section?
Did you use your kitchen scale to measure the maple syrup too?
Can you describe the consistency of the dough prior to kneading and rolling it out?
How thick was the dough after rolling it out in Step 3?
Were the crackers that were burnt the same thickness as the ones that were hard as a rock?
Is your oven a regular or convection (fan-assisted) oven?
How many oven rack positions are there inside of your oven, and which one did you use?
I know I just asked a LOT of questions, but I’ll have a much better idea of the culprit once I know your answers to all of them!
These crackers are truly fantastic, and so easy! I used my food processor to mix up a double batch. After rolling out the dough I brushed it with water, sprinkled on a tiny bit of kosher salt and did the fork prick thing. Then I cut the shapes with a sharp knife. What a delightful, homemade treat. Thank you for sharing your recipe and bringing whole grain goodness into the world!
I’m so glad you loved these crackers, Thetis!! Thank you for taking the time to let me know. It truly means a lot!
I have been making graham crackers for my husband for the last year or so, every 10-14 days, triple or quadruple batches, trying several different recipes and tweaking them constantly. It recently occurred to me I should look for a wheat thin recipe as we are trying to cut back on sugar. Your recipe had so few ingredients and seemed so simple. I was very excited to try it. I thought it would be way too much sweetness, but coming off of graham crackers, these were not too sweet to me. I wanted to love them, but I am afraid they will break my teeth! I made a double batch because we go through a LOT of crackers (my husband takes them for a snack every day with homemade peanut butter on them). I see Randi had the same problem, so I will answer the questions you asked him….
Like I said, I doubled the batch, so technically I didn’t follow exactly. I grind my own wheat, so I used that for the whole wheat. I weighed my ingredients. Always do. Admittedly I only used 59 g of syrup, not 60 g. 🙂
Before kneading the dough, I used a Danish whisk to bring it together. It was too difficult to stir, so I began kneading it with my hand in the bowl. It felt similar to bread dough, but a little stiffer.
I divided the dough in half (weighed exactly) and rolled each ball out to at least 1/16th of an inch if not thinner. It looked similar to your photo of rolled out crackers, perhaps mine were thinner. My silicone baking mat is 11×16.5 in. Each time the dough filled the mat almost to the edges once rolled out.
After baking, mine looked very different from yours. Yours look quite thick and airy/light in your photo. Mine were much thinner. I did not bake mine as long because they were turning very brown. The ones on the edges naturally cooked much faster than the ones in the center. I removed those and kept baking the white ones. The edges were a little thinner also, but still quite hard.
I have a regular oven. Well, it’s probably 30 years old, so I am calling it regular. Not convection. It has 4 positions for the racks and I had it on the second from the top. It heats from below.
I wonder if I kneaded the dough for too long? Or if I should have added a little more water or perhaps baking powder?
Don’t know if you will reply but I’m hoping so! This dough was SO much easier to work with than all the graham cracker recipes I have tried. They all say to bake around 12 minutes. Usually I have to bake things longer in my oven than most recipes call for. When I saw how long your recipe called for, it seemed very long for crackers, so I checked frequently, starting around 15 minutes. And lowered the temperature on the 2nd batch.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
It means a lot that you tried my recipe, SarahJoy! I’m happy to help figure out what happened. Thank you for sharing such detailed answers — this is all really helpful information! I have a few follow-up questions for you.
You mentioned using 59g of maple syrup. It sounds like you weighed it, rather than using a measuring cup, but I just wanted to double check! Is that true?
How long did you end up baking (a) the crackers around the edges and (b) the ones towards the middle?
What temperature did you use for your second batch?
Do you know if your oven runs hot or cold, by any chance?
When baking, do you usually use the rack position that’s second from the top?
If so, does anything else seem to bake faster than the times given in the recipe? (It sounds like the answer might be no, but I still wanted to check!)
I have an idea of the potential culprits, but I’ll be able to narrow it down once I know your answers to all of these additional questions! 🙂
Hi Amy, thanks for your speedy reply! Yes, as I mentioned, I always weigh my ingredients. I started doing this when I transitioned to milling my own grains. I forgot to mention, I used hard white wheat berries for this recipe. Since I usually have to bake things longer than recipes call for, I would say my oven runs cold, but it cycles on frequently and gets very hot to keep it at the set temperature. I don’t have a thermometer for the oven. I tried buying one one time and with no window in the door, it was pretty impossible to figure out what was going on with the temperature, but it SEEMED to go higher than the set temperature each time it dropped below the temperature to boost it back up. It has been a few years since I tried the thermometer circus.
I always use the second rack from the top unless it’s something too big to fit there.
I have slept a few times since I made these, and don’t remember the exact times I ended up with. 🤪 Only what I said in my first message. I’m pretty sure I removed the edge pieces no later than 20 minutes, maybe as early as 15. About 5-7 minutes more for the center pieces.
I lowered the second batch to around 325 F. Might have been more like 330. I am trying to think of other things that bake quicker than recipes say, but I’m having trouble coming up with anything. Probably if anything did, it was because I got impatient and cranked the heat up! 😁
I do think that crackers are finicky for me. Maybe because I use cast iron or a baking stone for most things? And for crackers I use a cookie sheet. It’s not super thin. USA Pan. But compared to the other things I usually bake with….
Thanks for sharing this additional information, SarahJoy! I’m happy to help. 🙂
One issue is weighing the maple syrup. Other than water, kitchen scales can’t actually measure liquids (ie ingredients given in mL or fluid ounces). I know many of them say they can, but it’s not true… And it drives me nuts. 😉 Scales can only measure weights, not volumes! This is because the weight of liquids like milk, honey, maple syrup, etc actually depends on their density, and every liquid’s density is different. There’s no way to program every different density into a kitchen scale, so that’s why it doesn’t work for measuring liquids. (Water is the exception because its density is exactly 1 g/mL!)
If you used your kitchen scale to measure the maple syrup, you were unintentionally measuring it by weight instead of volume, for the reasons I shared above, and that resulted in adding a different amount than the recipe called for! That factored into why your crackers turned out so hard. If you measure the maple syrup with a measuring cup or measuring spoons, your crackers should turn out much better because you’ll be adding the correct amount!
So for my recipes, I always recommend using a scale for solid ingredients (or mostly solid ingredients, like yogurt!) with measurements given in grams, and then using measuring cups or spoons for all liquid ingredients (given in mL) AND small amount solid ingredients (like baking powder, baking soda, salt, etc where you just need teaspoons!).
Another issue was how thinly the dough was rolled. If you rolled yours thinner than mine, the crackers definitely would’ve baked faster and turned out harder. If you’d like your crackers to be that thin again, then I’d recommend reducing the oven temperature (like you did for the second batch!) and baking them for less time.
Just to clarify, is the baking sheet that you use (the USA pan) light or dark metal? And you use it by itself, not with a baking stone or pizza stone or anything in the bottom of your oven too, correct?
“Hey Amy,
I am happy you decided to bring this up. It has been quite a tussle looking for healthy homemade snacks I can add to my boys’ lunch packs. Your Wheat Thin recipe has solved that. I can’t wait to see their reaction.”
It’s my pleasure, Claire! 🙂 I’d love to hear what your boys think of these homemade Wheat Thins!