Gluten, Dairy, and Soy Free Graham Crackers

I cannot tell you how excited I was to pop these into the oven! I was even more excited when they had {barely} cooled enough for me to take a taste.

That first bite? It *tasted* like a graham cracker. A real, honest-to-goodness graham cracker. I haven't had one of those in a year and a half!

They were a hit with the rest of the family too.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 Cups Gluten-Free AP Flour Blend
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Xanthan Gum
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
7 Tbsp. Shortening, chilled {I use Spectrum}
1/4 Cup Honey {I believe agave would work here, for a vegan recipe}
1/4 Cup Cold Water
1 tsp. Vanilla

To Make:
Combine the flour, brown sugar, xanthan gum, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of your food processor.
Add the chilled shortening, honey, cold water, and vanilla, pulsing to combine the ingredients. You'll wind up with a very solid ball of dough.
Turn the dough out onto your {clean} counter top, and knead it just a bit to form a ball. Divide the ball into two equal parts.
Roll each ball of dough out onto a piece of parchment paper, to a thickness somewhere around 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch. The thinner your dough, the more crunch your finished treat will have, especially the next day. {I like to use a sheet of plastic wrap between the top of my dough and my rolling pin, as gluten free dough tends to STICK to the rolling pin.}
Using a small knife or your pizza cutter, score the dough to create squares. Use the tines of a fork to poke holes in the crackers, giving them the "look" of graham crackers we're all familiar with.
Slide each piece of parchment, with the rolled dough, onto a cookie sheet. Refrigerate the dough, on the cookie sheets, for about 30 minutes.
Bake the crackers, one sheet at a time, in a preheated oven set to 325 degrees. On my air-bake cookie sheet, 25 minutes was perfect. On my non-air-bake, 25 minutes was a touch too long. Experiment with your own oven and cookie sheets, watching for golden brown edges and a bit of dryness on the top of the crackers.
Immediately after removing the crackers from the oven, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar. You could also add some cinnamon on top, for cinnamon-sugar graham crackers.
When you remove the finished graham crackers from the oven, you'll likely need to re-cut the squares. I found this to be easiest with a small paring knife.

Store your cooled graham crackers in an air-tight container.