Digestive Biscuits

Mille® 's Note:

These are one of the most popular biscuits sold commercially in Britain. They are very delicate and, therefore, extremely difficult to reproduce exactly but this recipe is fairly close. The ORIGINAL recipe is posted, verbatim, below. However, please note that I used Pillsbury plain whole wheat flour (which I sifted) and I used 4 ROUNDED, not level, tablespoons of wheat germ. These minor modifications were made as a result of the (always) invaluable advice and information I received from fellow chefs in a Recipezaar discussion forum. Biscuits will be 2 1/2 inch diameter x 1/8 inch thick.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 5 mins
• Prep Time: 40 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 18

Yield: 36.0 biscuits

• 11 ounces plain whole wheat flour
• 4 tablespoons wheat germ
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk powder
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 4 ½ ounces butter
• 5 tablespoons cold water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Combine the dry ingredients, and then cut in the butter so that the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Combine the water and vanilla and drizzle over the dry mixture.
3. Blend until the dough can be packed together.
4. Roll out on a floured surface or between two sheets of waxed paper until the dough is about 3 mm (1/8 inch) thick.
5. Cut into circles or other shapes and bake on a greased baking sheet at 170°C/ 325°F/ Gas Mark 3 for 20 to 25 minutes; make sure the oven does not get too hot- they should not be too brown.
6. Cool and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Reviews

[Mille®]

Chef's Note: I strongly recommend rolling the dough between sheets of wax paper instead of on a floured surface, because it is a somewhat dry dough and adding even the smallest amount of flour by rolling the dough in it might result in a dough that is a little too dry and crumbly.

[Anu]

Awesome, though it doesn't taste 'exactly' like the commercial stuff (McV, I know! :) I halved the recipe, and used level tablespoons of wheat germ (was that wise?!). The dough was a bit crumbly so I added an additional tablespoon of water to hold it together. I printed out this recipe without your review, Miller, so I did roll it out on a lightly floured surface, but in batches, because it was easier to work with. This made 23 biscuits, which I baked for 20 minutes. Thanks for this one... it's time consuming, but worth the effort!

[Iconographer]

I happen to have some Harrod's digestive biscuits and these are not the same. They also were tough and tasteless. The recipe required more water to even get to gather up into a ball to roll. Something is very wrong with this recipe.