Digestive Biscuits

From Bon Appetit.

Makes about 30 with a 5cm/2” cutter.

• 115g butter, cold, cubed
• 33g wheat germ
• 75g sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 5g salt
• 167g whole wheat flour, and a little more for dusting
• 65g milk

Set oven to 180C (160C fan).

Pulse dry ingredients (in a food processor!) plus butter (so all except the milk) to a crumbs texture; just a little moister than a powder. Add milk and pulse again, to a crumbly dough. Wrap and chill for a few minutes (15 minutes).

Roll out to 5mm, cut out, prick with fork, transfer to lined tray. Rolling out will need dusting with more flour, as the dough is quite crumbly, so brush off any excess. If you don’t want to go for round biscuits, there’s nothing wrong with cutting neat squares, just remember to space them out slightly on the baking tray.

Bake 15-18 minutes, allow to cool on the baking sheets. They will firm up if slightly soft, but timing depends on desired colour and thickness.

Variations

• 2 oz. chocolate (any percentage), chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp. refined coconut oil (optional)

If you want to try for chocolate biscuits: melt the chocolate in a bain marie with the oil to mix well, and brush on the biscuits after after baking; you want to aim for two layers after letting the first layer cool briefly.

Another alternative is to sprinkle on a small pinch of Maldon salt (or another flaked salt) before baking. Keep the pinch size down to just the amount picked up between the pads of two fingertips, not a honking great chef’s pinch.

Apart from that, the sky’s the limit: caraway seeds, grated parmesan, cardamom, …