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

FAQs

Does adding more baking powder make biscuits rise higher? ›

Conclusion: More baking powder makes the biscuit rise more (imagine that!). About 1 tablespoon of baking powder per 2 cups of flour seems to be about the right amount, but even halving or doubling this amount should not ruin your biscuits.

Bake them close to each other.

Biscuits are an exception to this rule: Placing them close to one another on your baking sheet actually helps them push each other up, as they impede each other from spreading outward and instead puff up skywards.

Use Cold Butter for Biscuits

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.

Digestive biscuits are made with ingredients that help to break down food and promote a healthy digestive system. In fact, digestive biscuits are often made with whole wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, and baking soda. So next time you're reaching for a biscuit, know that you're doing your stomach a favor!

Mistake #9: Baking at a too low of a temperature

Biscuits should be baked at a high temperature so they turn out golden brown and rise nice and tall. I like to bake my biscuits at 450oF. By baking at a high temperature it helps your homemade biscuits to rise up quickly in the oven.

Too much baking powder can cause the batter to be bitter tasting. It can also cause the batter to rise rapidly and then collapse. (i.e. The air bubbles in the batter grow too large and break causing the batter to fall.) Cakes will have a coarse, fragile crumb with a fallen center.

US biscuits are made today with chemical leaveners. The basic recipe uses flour, baking powder, a fat ( butter or Crisco or lard), salt, and buttermilk. The acid in the buttermilk activates the baking powder, the heat of the oven melts the fat. The biscuits rise and are tender and flaky.

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.

Which liquid makes the best biscuits? ›

Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.

Biscuit recipes tend to be egg-free, this makes them drier and the lack of protein to bind the mix helps achieve that crumbly texture. For super light, crumbly biscuits try grating or pushing the yolks of hard-boiled eggs through a sieve into the biscuit dough.

The Bottom Line

I personally think that biscuits are at their best when you use a fine pastry-type flour like White Lily or Bob's Pastry flour. BUT, all-purpose flour is absolutely an option. I actually think that your technique when making biscuits is just as - if not, more - important than the flour you use.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid.

Nutritionists often emphasize that one should exercise moderation when consuming these biscuits. While they can be a source of dietary fibre and be a satisfying snack, overindulging in these biscuits can lead to an excessive intake of calories and added sugars.

Calories: Digestive biscuits tend to have fewer calories than other cookies, which makes them a smarter choice if you're watching your calorie intake. Health benefits: As noted earlier, digestive biscuits do offer some nutrition – such as fiber from whole grains – which many regular cookies lack.

These biscuits are made with saturated fats and may contain around 3-5 grams of fat per biscuit, which may not be a healthy choice. Lastly, the addition of sodium as well as other preservatives to enhance the taste and shelf life are synthetic in nature. Thus, digestive biscuits are not as healthy as they sound!

They're quite different: digestive biscuits are always round, while as far as I know graham crackers are always rectangular. Apart from that they're similar but definitely not the same.