Zesty Oat Biscuits
With a nutritious base of wholemeal flour and oats, these crunchy biscuits are a cousin of digestive biscuits, but with the zesty flavours of orange, lemon and lime.
Ingredients
- 2 limes
- 1 large orange
- 1 large lemon
- 30 g sultanas
- 20 g mixed dried peel can be replaced with more sultanas
- 70 g plain wholemeal flour plus extra for rolling
- 60 g medium oatmeal see Recipe Notes
- 60 g rolled oats or porridge oats
- 50 g plain white flour can be replaced with wholemeal or oatmeal
- 1 pinch salt
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 120 g butter
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 egg, beaten you will probably not need all of it
Instructions
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Remove the zest from the limes, orange and lemon, chop it finely then set aside.
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Optional step
Squeeze the juice from the limes, orange and lemon and put it in a small saucepan along with the sultanas and dried peel if using.
Bring to the boil, then take off the heat and leave to cool while you prepare the rest of the dough.
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Put the flours, oatmeal, oats, salt and bicarbonate of soda in a mixing bowl.
Rub in the butter.
If you soaked the sultanas and peel at Step 2, drain them well and blot on kitchen paper.
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Stir the sugar, zest, sultanas and dried peel into the rubbed-in mixture.
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Add enough of the beaten egg to make a stiff dough.
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Sprinkle your work surface with wholemeal flour and lightly knead the dough into a smooth ball.
Wrap the dough in cling film or foil and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile:
- preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4.
- grease two baking trays or line them with baking parchment.
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Divide the dough in half, rewrap one half and put it back in the fridge.
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Flour your worksurface and rolling pin, then roll out the first half ball of dough approximately 3-4 mm thick.
Stamp out biscuits using a 6-7 cm cutter and put them on a baking tray.
Gather together the scraps, re-roll and stamp out more biscuits.
Repeat with the second half of dough.
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Put the trays towards the middle of the oven & bake until dark golden and cooked all the way through (approx 13-18 min).
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Leave the biscuits to cool on the trays for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack where they'll crisp up more as they cool.
When completely cold, store the biscuits in an airtight container.
Recipe Notes
If preferred, use fine or coarse oatmeal. You can also make your own oatmeal by whizzing rolled oats or porridge oats in a blender or coffee grinder until the desired fineness is reached.