Between cookies and crackers lies the sweet-meal biscuit, also known as a tea biscuit, not to be confused with quick bread biscuits like these. There’s another term too, but it just makes me laugh—digestives…because they’re made with a little baking soda I suppose. (While I’m at it, let’s not forget graham crackers—definitely cookies!— which I used as a springboard for these biscuits along with Hanne Risgaard’s “Digestives” in Home Baked; Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry. If you want to bake graham crackers, see this recipe.)
As with crackers, rarely do people make them at home anymore, but I want to change that due to the availability of whole-grain, stone-ground flours grown and milled by people like my friend, Judy Cornell, of Conservation Grains. In this recipe I use Snowgoose, a hard white spring wheat.
rolled out dough
Snowgoose Biscuits
makes 20 2.5-inch round biscuits and some bakeable scraps; adapted from "Digestives," Home Baked by Hanne Risgaard
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups real whole wheat flour like Snowgoose from Conservation Grains 220 grams
- ¼ cup sugar (raw turbinado or light brown) 50 grams
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- 4 ounces unsalted butter (1 stick), cold 113 grams
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons honey
Instructions
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Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Cube the cold butter and cut it into the flour using a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers.
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Using a fork stir in the egg and honey. Press the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic or parchment, and refrigerate for 30–60 minutes.
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Preheat oven between 375° and 400°. Line a cookie sheet pan with parchment or a Silpat. Roll out dough to ⅛-inch thickness—lightly dust counter, rolling pin, and cutter with additional whole wheat flour.
(I get about 10 2.5-inch rounds with the first rolling, then gather and reroll once to get the remaining. At this point, I cut the scraps into long strips and bake them too, they may not be as cute, but they are equally delicious!)
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Brush the tops of the biscuits with water then using a bench scraper, transfer the biscuits to the prepared sheet pan. Bake until you notice the aroma and biscuits are beginning to brown around the edges, about 10–12 minutes. Let sit a couple minutes on the pan then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
