This recipe is for those wonderfully crisp and crunchy digestive biscuits. I have made a recipe, before, for digestive biscuits. However, although they tasted very good indeed they weren’t truly a good representation of the familiar digestive.
So I decided it was time to make another version, more akin to the store bought version.
I should mention that these days digestive biscuits come in many varieties. The traditional version is a simple biscuit, of wholemeal flour, that is crisp and crunchy. But there are versions that have the tops coated with milk or dark chocolate. At various times, such as Christmas, other special varieties are available too, flavoured for that season. McVities is the largest brand of digestives and they are very good indeed. Each supermarket in the UK also sells their own brand of digestives, in various forms.
Indeed digestive biscuits are the most popular biscuit in the UK. They are also my personal favourite. I prefer the plain version that hasn’t been coated in chocolate since I think they are better for dunking in my tea.
Recipe
So this recipe is just that simple version of the plain biscuit. But, of course, they could be topped with chocolate after baking, if desired. Adding a little ground ginger, or other spice, would also provide a nice alternative.
As the title of this post suggests making these biscuits takes very little time. That is, though, time well spent. The resultant biscuits are very good indeed. They are a close approximation of the originals. However there is a difference. The manufactured version of the biscuits uses palm oil. This recipe uses butter instead.
So making the biscuits just needs the ingredients mixed into a dough. Then you roll out the dough and cut out discs. Prick some holes into the discs. Then it is time to baked the biscuits. I should mention that I also used a little tool to impress the word digestive into some of my biscuits, but that is not necessary.
My Biscuits
I baked my biscuits for 20 minutes. They baked well and coloured slightly around the edges. So I transferred with to a wire rack to cool completely.
Then I enjoyed a taste. The biscuits had a lovely crunchy texture. It was exactly like those available in stores. The flavour was great too, and very similar to the commercially produced versions. However the butter did give just a little extra flavour too.
Another very easy biscuit recipe is Gingernuts – Crunchy GInger Biscuits.
Digestive Biscuits – Quick & Easy
Course: Biscuits, CookiesCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy20
servings20
minutes20
minutesIngredients
225g(1 1/2 cups, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) wholemeal flour
90g(3/4 cup) icing sugar
125g(9 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cubed
55ml(1/4 cup minus 1 tsp) milk
4g(1 tsp) baking powder
3g(scant 1/2 tsp) salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F.
- Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together and add them to the bowl of a processor( or place in a large bowl)
- Add the butter and pulse the processor until the mixture resembles coarse sand(or add the butter into the bowl and rub it in between your fingers).
- Add most of the milk and process until the mixture begins to clump( or stir the milk into the bowl until it clumps.
- Add the remaining milk if required.
- Use your hands to form the dough into a tight ball.
- Place the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to a thickness of 5mm(just under 1/4 inch). Flour the top of the dough too, to prevent sticking.
- Use a cookie cutter of about 7.5cm(3 inches) to cut out discs.
- Transfer the discs to the baking trays, leaving a gap between each.
- Pull the excess dough into a ball and roll out again to make more discs.
- Prick the discs with a skewer to make holes on the dough.
- Bake the biscuits for 15 to 20 minutes(mine took 20 minutes), until the biscuits are cooked through and the edges have started to colour.
- Take the biscuits out of the over and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.