Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

Years ago I bought a copy of King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking. I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't bake out of it that much because I didn't have the unfamiliar grains. I'd flip through the book looking for things with more familiar ingredients, like Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits. The only "unusual" ingredient here is whole wheat flour.

The first thing I noticed was that they didn't taste like "health food." They have the nutty flavor of whole wheat, but they're still tender, buttery, and just sweet enough from the honey to make them feel special. They're the kind of biscuit you can serve alongside dinner, split and fill with strawberries for shortcake, or eat standing in the kitchen with butter slowly melting into the center.

I made the first batch for strawberry shortcake, which felt like a slightly more wholesome alternative to the usual baking powder biscuits. The whole wheat flour gave the shortcakes a little more character, and the honey played surprisingly well with the berries. They were good enough that I ended up making an extra biscuit just to eat with raspberry jam.

This recipe doesn't require a lot of ingredients. If you keep whole wheat flour, butter, honey, and buttermilk around, you're probably already halfway there. And if you're curious about baking with whole wheat flour but aren't ready to commit to a loaf of hearty sandwich bread, these biscuits are a pretty nice place to start.

Update

This really is a good recipe, and amenable to little changes such as adding chocolate chips or using white whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat. The first time I made these I used cutters, but these days I'm more likely to halve or quarter the recipe and just cut the biscuits into a square shape.

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Recipe

Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits

Anna

Slightly sweet biscuits made with whole wheat flour and a touch of honey.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Servings 12 biscuits

Ingredients

 

• 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour (315 grams)
• ½ cup unbleached bread flour (63 grams)
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, cold (114 grams)
• 1 large egg (60 grams)
• ¾ cup buttermilk (170 grams)
• 3 tablespoons honey (60 grams)

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Whisk together both flours, baking soda and salt.
• Using a food processor or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until mixture is crumbly.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk and honey. Add this mixture all at once to the flour mixture and blend until evenly moistened. It will still be shaggy and crumbly at this point.
• Turn the dough onto a floured work surface. Using a bench scraper or a pie lifter, fold the dough over on itself and press down. Repeat twice until it all comes together.
• Roll dough until it is somewhere between ¾ and 1 inch thick, then cut into rounds using a 2 inch cutter.
• Arrange on baking sheet, brush tops with buttermilk and bake 15 to 20 minutes

Notes

King Arthur says the yield is 12 biscuits, but I quartered it and got 4 so I'm not sure what happened! They tasted great.

Keyword Biscuits, whole wheat

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