How to Make Digestive Biscuits Recipe - Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in digestive biscuits? ›

Flour (54%) (WHEAT Flour, Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Vegetable Oil (Palm), Wholemeal WHEAT Flour (16%), Sugar, Partially Inverted Sugar Syrup, Raising Agents (Sodium Bicarbonate, Malic Acid, Ammonium Bicarbonate), Salt, Dried Skimmed MILK. Allergy Advice: Contains: Milk, Wheat.

Keep the oven hot.

When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

For flaky layers, use cold butter. When you cut in the butter, you have coarse crumbs of butter coated with flour. When the biscuit bakes, the butter will melt, releasing steam and creating pockets of air. This makes the biscuits airy and flaky on the inside.

Increasing the amount of butter definitely makes the biscuit "taste" softer, more crumbly, and more flaky.

Graham crackers, BelVitas, or Marie biscuits are all useful substitutes for digestive biscuits. Keep reading to get more alternatives for your dessert making.

The “digestive” part of digestive biscuits makes these cookies sound like somewhat of a health food. But the name actually refers to one of the crucial ingredients in the batter, sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda), which is also known to briefly alleviate an upset stomach.

While biscuits receive some leavening power from chemical sources — baking powder and baking soda — the difference between serviceable and greatness comes from the extra rise that steam provides. In order to generate steam, the oven must be set at a minimum of 425 degrees for at least 10 minutes prior to baking.

Too little fat will result in dry and heavy biscuits. The type of flour you use is important. Don't use bread flour unless the recipe calls for it and avoid whole wheat and other whole grain flours. They will make the biscuits tough and heavy.

Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn't enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.

For super light, crumbly biscuits try grating or pushing the yolks of hard-boiled eggs through a sieve into the biscuit dough. This increases the fat content and slows down the development of gluten. Cookie recipes on the other hand are more likely to contain eggs. Adding moisture as well as binding the mixture.

Should you chill biscuit dough before baking? ›

And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

Crisco may be beneficial for other baking applications, but for biscuit making, butter is the ultimate champion!

Buttermilk also adds a pleasant tanginess to baked biscuits, and its relatively low levels of fat make it work in recipes that call for any kind of fat, from butter to shortening, and even cream. (Yes, cream can be used as both a liquid and a fat.

Make sure your butter is at the correct temperature – use unsalted butter softened to room temperature for creaming and cold, unsalted butter for biscuits and pastries that require butter to be rubbed into the flour.

Learning how to “cut in” butter is a process that ensures light and flaky pie crusts, biscuits, and scones. Most bread recipes that call for flour and butter ask that you “cut in” the butter or combine the two ingredients with a pastry blender or cutter.

While not packed with vitamins and minerals, if you eat digestive biscuits in moderation they can fit perfectly into a balanced diet. The fiber content can aid digestion, and they make for a better choice when compared to other cookies filled with refined sugars and unhealthy fats.

Do note that Almond cookies are supposed to be consumed 2 at a time (16g) but for comparison sake, we have indexed it to 100g. A high carb digestive biscuit does not really help a diabetic to keep their sugar levels in check, on the contrary would continue to spike blood sugar levels.

Digestive or diabetic-friendly biscuits are not calorie-free or necessarily healthy. They may contain just 15-20 per cent fewer calories than the regular variety and may encourage you to consume large portions, thinking that they are safe. Many of them are loaded with sugar.

Refined Wheat Flour, Whole Wheat Flour, Edible Vegetable Oil (Palm), Sugar, Wheat Bran, Liquid Glucose, Milk Solids, Maltodextrin, Raising Agents, Iodised Salt, Emulsifiers, Malt Extract and Dough Conditioner.