Go Back
–+ servings

Digestive Biscuits

A crisp, buttery and delicately sweet snack to enjoy with a cup of tea
Course Snack
Cuisine British
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Time to chill biscuits 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Servings 24 biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 3/4 cups (9 1/2oz/255g) white wholewheat flour
  • 1/2 cup (3oz/85g) Scottish oatmeal *See note below
  • 10 1/2 TBS (5 1/4oz/150g) unsalted butter - cold from the fridge, cut into 1/2" (12mm) pieces
  • 5 TBS (2oz/55g) dark brown sugar - **See note below
  • 1/2 Tsp fine sea salt
  • 1/2 Tsp baking soda
  • 4 Tsp (20ml) milk

Instructions

Mix the dough:

  • Place the flour, oatmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder in a food processor and pulse several times until thoroughly combined.
  • Add the butter pieces and process thoroughly. It is important to process the butter into the flour until it starts to form clumps or the dough will be crumbly and difficult to work with. This may take up to 25, 1 second pulses. Stop and scrape down the the bowl a few times when the dough starts to climb up the sides.
  • Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the milk. Toss gently with your fingertips to thoroughly distribute the milk throughout the dough. It should look like wet sand.

Prepare to roll out the dough:

  • Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
  • This dough is very stiff and needs a sturdy rolling pin and some elbow grease to roll it out. Wipe your work surface with a damp cloth to moisten it. Place a piece of wax paper (greaseproof) about 18" (45cm) long on your work surface. (The damp surface stops the wax paper from sliding all over the place.)
  • Gather half the dough on to the wax paper and form it into a dense ball. Flatten the ball with the heel of your hand as much as you can. Cover with another sheet of wax paper or plastic wrap and roll it out to 3/16" (5mm) thickness. The dough may be a bit crumbly to begin with but it becomes more workable the more you roll it. With a 2-3/4" (7cm) cookie cutter cut out as many biscuits as you can. Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet using a small spatula. These biscuits don’t spread at all so you can place them quite close together.
  • Gather the scraps adding more dough from the bowl. Roll and cut more biscuits, transferring them to the baking sheet pan as you go. Keep rolling, cutting and gathering until all the dough is used up.
  • Transfer the sheet pans to the refrigerator.

Bake the biscuits:

  • While the biscuits are chilling in the fridge, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) with a convection fan. If your oven does not have a fan, heat it to 375ºF (190ºC).
  • Take one sheet pan out of the fridge and poke the biscuits 3-4 times with the tines of a fork. Bake for about 18 minutes on the middle rack, rotating the pan halfway through to ensure even baking. ***See note below.
  • Allow the biscuits to cool on the sheet pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
  • Repeat with the second sheet pan.
  • The biscuits will keep for a week in an airtight container at room temperature.

Notes

* Scottish oatmeal is commonly available in the UK. Not so much in the US. Look for Bob's Red Mill Scottish oatmeal where you live. Failing that, whizz regular rolled oats in the food processor until the are finely ground. The flavor won't be quite the same as with porridge oats but still very good.
** Unlike flour and other dry ingredients, brown sugar is always packed into the measuring cup or spoon so be sure to pack it in when you measure it out. Unless you are weighing your ingredients of course - always the better choice in baking.
*** All ovens behave differently and have their own characteristics. In my oven it takes 18 minutes to bake a batch of these biscuits. Yours may bake a few minutes faster or may take a little longer. Trial and error will soon get you to the ideal time. Keep in mind, the biscuits will darken slightly as they cool so if they look a tad on the pale side at the end of baking, don't worry, they will be perfect by the time they are cooled. 
If you are making these in the summer time in a warm kitchen the butter in the dough may start to melt. If it becomes too sticky to work with, place the bowl of dough in the fridge for 10 minutes to stiffen it a bit before continuing.