Digestive biscuits were introduced commercially in 1892 and marketed to gullible Victorian consumers as a cure for “windy colic.” The quasi health-food biscuits are my favorite cookie to round out the afternoon’s cuppa sweet, milky Assam. Digestives are also delicious as a quick dessert, spread with a quarter inch of cold, salty Miyokos butter.
The cookies have a dry, crumbly bite that quickly melts in your mouth, leaving tasty bits of grain for you to chew for the rest of the day.
Do check your smile before getting on post-tea Zoom calls.
My culinary challenge was to veganize the sweetmeal biscuits. And because I love all things oat, I decided to make the cookies with oat flour rather than wheat.
I used a King Arthur English Digestive recipe as a springboard, swapping Miyoko’s vegan butter and oat milk for the dairy varieties.
To maintain peak melt-in-your-mouth texture, be careful not to over- bake the biscuits. I reduced the recommended 15-minute bake time to 10-12 minutes.
Oat Digestive Biscuits Recipe
2 cups oat flour; buy the flour or grind your own, see below.
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup Miyoko’s butter or other vegan butter slightly softened
1-2 tablespoons oat milk or other vegan milk
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- If grinding your own flour, pour 2 1/2 cups rolled oats into a blender or food processor and process on high until oats have a mealy, floury consistency. You may need to use slightly more or less oats to yield 2 cups of flour. Set aside a couple of tablespoons.
- In a medium sized bowl, blend oat flour, confectioner’s sugar, baking powder and salt.
- Using a pastry cutter, whisk or your fingers, cut in the butter, blending until its incorporated and crumbly. Note: to soften Miyoko’s butter, leave at room temperature for half an hour. I try not to nuke the butter as it melts in a flash.
- Toss in just enough oat milk to make a stiff dough—I tested this recipe twice, using one tablespoon the first time and two tablespoons the second time.
- Dump dough onto a surface lightly sprinkled with reserved oat flour and knead briefly until smooth.
- Roll out dough between two sheets of waxed paper, shaping it into a 1/4″-thick rectangle. Cut into 3″ rounds and slide the rounds onto a greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet.
- Using a fork, prick the biscuits to keep them from buckling as they bake. Note: the fork pricks disappeared as I baked the biscuits and I re-pierced them after I slid them out of the oven to cool.
Yields 2 dozen biscuits.
Photography by raleigh322
Wow.