Oats Barley Digestive Biscuits

Barley is a key ingredient in beer and whisky production. It’s a good source of dietary fibre, iron, manganese and vitamin. It helps to regulate glucose levels in blood and lowers blood cholesterol. Barley grains are commonly made into malt in

a traditional and ancient method of preparation. It’s a member of the grass family cultivated to be majorly used as animal fodder, health food, beverage industry and so on.

These digestive biscuits are very easy to make and quite addictive. You just can’t stop at one 🙂 I have used coconut sugar (because I had a pack lying with me unattended), but you may use other sugars. These are very mildly sweet. If you are using a 240 ml cup, then 100 gm oats would be around a cup and 100 gm barley flour would be around 3/4 cup. You may skip the baking soda if you want. For few more Barley recipes, you may click here. For those interested, there is another digestive biscuits recipe in the blog. Please do try these. If you don’t have barley flour, replace it with same quantity of wheat flour. Or else follow the earlier recipe.

Ingredients:

• Oats 100 gm
• Barley flour 100 gm
• Salt a pinch
• Coconut sugar 60 gm
• Chilled butter 56 gm (1/4 cup)
• Cold milk 2-3 tbsp
• Vanilla extract 1/2 tsp
• Baking soda a pinch (optional)

Method:

• Pulse the oats in a mixer till you get a coarse powder. Do not make a very fine powder.
• Mix the oats and barley flour in a big bowl. Add a pinch of salt, baking soda and coconut sugar.

• Cut the chilled butter (make sure it’s chilled stiff butter) into small pieces.
• Add it to the flour mixture and rub it into the dry flour till the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

• It would have a sand like texture and you should be able to bind it and hold it like a ball.

• Add the vanilla extract to the milk and sprinkle this milk slowly into the flour mixture.

• Mix everything till you get a dough like consistency. Do not knead the dough. Do not add too much milk.

• Refrigerate the mixture for around 15-20 minutes.
• Take the dough and make big lime size balls out of it.
• Roll between two layers of parchment paper into a disc of around 1/8 inch thickness.
• Cut the rolled dough into discs of around 2.5-3 inches diameter.
• Gather the trimmed ends and roll them again. I got 24 biscuits of 2.5 inches diameter.

• Meanwhile preheat the oven at around 150-170 degree Celsius for atleast ten minutes.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Poke holes on these biscuits using a toothpick or satay stick. Now place these cut biscuits on the baking tray and bake for around 18-22 minutes.

• Remove the tray from the oven and let it cool in the tray for 4-5 minutes.
• Transfer them onto a wire rack and cool completely.
• Store them in an airtight container. It will stay well for 14-15 days. Enjoy them with your morning tea or coffee.

Notes:

• I have added coconut sugar, you can add cane sugar or brown sugar or even powdered jaggery.
• My coconut sugar had a brown colour, so the dough is looking quite dark.
• These biscuits are mildly sweetened, you may increase the sweetness by 15-20 grams or two tablespoons if you prefer a sweeter version.
• Do not knead the dough, simply assemble everything so that it comes together.
• Do not add more than 2-3 tablespoons of milk. Increase butter by a teaspoon or so if the dough appears too dry.
• Roll it into a disc of uniform thickness for even baking.
• If you feel that the biscuits has lost its crunch on cooling, bake it again for 4-5 minutes. But keep an eye on it, can burn very fast.
• I have used my Borosil Prima 60 litre oven.

Oven settings:

Temp: 150-160 degree Celsius

Fan mode: On

Rod settings: Both top and bottom on

Time: Preheating – 10 min, Baking 21 minutes.