Graham cracker crust is a style of

pie crust Shortcrust pastry is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche, pie, or (in the British English sense) flan. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken ...

made from crushed

graham crackers A graham cracker (pronounced or in America) is a sweet flavored cracker made with graham flour that originated in the United States in the mid-19th century, with commercial development from about 1880. It is eaten as a snack food, usually ho ...

. Graham crackers are a sweet American cracker made from unbleached, whole wheat

graham flour Graham flour is a type of coarse-ground flour of whole wheat named after Sylvester Graham. It is similar to conventional whole-wheat flour in that both are made from the whole grain, but graham flour is ground more coarsely. It is not sifted (" ...

. The crust is usually flavored and stiffened with

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fat ...

and sometimes

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

. Graham cracker crust is a very common type of crust for cheesecakes and

cream pie A cream pie, crème pie, or creme pie is a type of pie filled with a rich custard or pudding that is made from milk, cream, sugar, wheat flour, and eggs. It comes in many forms, including vanilla, lemon, lime, peanut butter, banana, coconut, a ...

s in America. Graham cracker pie crusts are available as a

mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

product in the United States, and typically consist of the prepared crust pressed into a disposable aluminum pie pan. Variations use crushed cookies or

Nilla wafers Nilla is a brand name owned by Nabisco that is most closely associated with its line of vanilla-flavored, wafer-style cookies. The name is a shortened version of vanilla, the flavor profile common to all Nilla-branded products. Originally sold as ...

as substitutes for the graham crackers.

Origin

The invention of the graham cracker crust is credited to

Monroe Boston Strause Monroe Boston Strause was an American piemaker whose innovations included graham-cracker crust, chiffon pie, and black-bottom pie. He was a "pie celebrity" whose name was "a household word." Strause was born in 1900 in Los Angeles. In 1919 he wa ...

, who was known as the Pie King and also invented the

chiffon pie A chiffon pie is a type of pie that consists of a special type of airy filling in a crust. The filling is typically produced by folding meringue into a mixture resembling fruit curd (most commonly lemon) that has been thickened with unflavored g ...

.Perry, Charles.
The Pie King.
Los Angeles ''Times'' January 9, 1997. Retrieved July 8, 2015. Chocolate cream pie

References

Pies Food ingredients {{ingredient-stub