Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

Why do you never see or hear of whole wheat buttermilk biscuits? At least me and my husband haven’t. I told him it must be that regular biscuits are so darn good that who would possibly mess with them?! Me, I guess. I like to try everything with wheat flour at least once.

There is some cold bug/virus running around town and my daughter was sick for a few days. She had no appetite so I thought a freshly baked treat would make her feel better. She had been asking for biscuits so I made her these with scrambled eggs and fruit for lunch. She ate pretty well that day.

There isn’t much that is better than bread fresh out of the oven. I try not to make biscuits too often, because I just want to eat them all. At once. With butter and honey. Lots of it. However, I LOVE to bake. I truly believe you can fit it into a healthy lifestyle and I’d much rather eat from-scratch baked goods than store-bought stuff any day!

I am so glad I thought to try these. As soon as I thought whole wheat biscuit, I turned to one of my new cookbooks: King Arthur, Whole Grains. Bingo- they had a recipe that looked pretty simple. I personally loved how they turned out. They aren’t quite as fluffy and light as a regular buttermilk biscuit but they were really good and surprisingly flakey. You could taste the nuttiness from the whole wheat flour and a slight sweetness from the honey. I still wanted to eat all of them. I did, however, feel slightly less guilty knowing that they had whole wheat flour in them.

So you just mix your dry ingredients, cut in the cold, cubed butter- you can use a fork or pastry cutter to do this. The key to flaky biscuits (and pie crusts)= cold butter.

Stir in your wet ingredients until the dough just comes together

Roll out your dough and use a biscuit cutter or a glass to cut out your biscuits (sorry forgot about that step for a photo)

Lay them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet

Um please excuse the blur, I was holding the baby for this shot.

and they come out of the oven- hot and ready to be dressed: butter, honey, jelly, eggs….you name your topping.

These were absolutely perfect reheated in the microwave over the next couple days. I was surprised at how well they held up. Let me know if you try them!

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Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (original recipe calls for regular whole wheat flour or white whole wheat)
1/2 cup bread flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
3 Tablespoons honey

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour through salt).
2. Cut butter into dry ingredients using a pastry cutter, two knives, a fork or food processor. Work the butter into the mix until it resembles coarse crumbs.
3. In a separate small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg and honey.
4. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and blend quickly and lightly with a fork until the mixture is moistened. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead three or four times until dough comes together. Do not overwork. If you have a dough scraper you could use that instead of your hands.
5. Pat the dough out until it is 3/4 inch thick. Cut the dough with a 2 inch dough cutter (or I’ve used the rim of a drinking glass before). Transfer biscuits to prepared sheet. Continue with scraps until all dough is used. Brush the top of biscuits with melted butter. Bake until golden brown, about 20 to 22 minutes. Remove from oven and serve warm. Yield: 12 biscuits. Store leftovers in foil or air-tight container.

COOK’S NOTES: after step 4 my dough looked a little dry so I added the last drop of wet ingredients that was left in the bowl and this was enough for it to come together. If you need to add a drop more of butter milk until dough comes together, do so. In order to obtain a fluffy biscuit: do not overwork the dough and use cold butter!

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Recipe adapted (slightly) from King Arthur, Whole Grain Baking

Question: what is your favorite thing to bake? Have you tried baking with whole wheat flour?