If you like the flavor of whole wheat but have never tried it in biscuits, the Honey Whole Wheat Biscuits from King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking Book are very good! I made a quick batch last night to use as a base for strawberry shortcake. They worked well for that, but were also terrific with a little butter and jelly.
Fuzz ate this one for her after school snack and the rest of the biscuits were used for shortcake. Which brings me to another thing I love about biscuit recipes -- they are so easy to halve or quarter. I actually made a quarter of this recipe just by weighing out ¼ of each ingredient.
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.
Small Batch Whole Wheat Biscuits
If you just want a small batch of whole wheat biscuits, here are the measurements: 80 grams whole wheat flour, 15 grams bread flour, ⅝ teaspoon baking powder, ⅛ teaspoon soda, big pinch salt, 28 grams of butter, 1 tablespoon (12-15 grams beaten egg, 3 tablespoons buttermilk and 15 grams of honey. Mix dry ingredients, then grate butter over the top. Toss. Move to the side of the bowl and put egg, buttermilk and honey on other side of the bowl. Mix together egg/honey/milk, then mix into dry ingredients. Shape into a 2x6 inch rectangle and cut into 3 biscuits or shape into square and cut into 4.
Recipe
Honey Whole Wheat 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 (70 grams)
- 3 tablespoons 60 grams 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
Anna
Wow! I didn't realize you were such fan of this book and that you were making them all. How cool. I'll definitely hit you up for reviews.
I pulled out the book after you mentioned the banana bread, which I made yesterday and which I like it just as much or more than the Silver Palate recipe. It's VERY similar to the Silver Palate recipe except they use dark brown sugar, some honey and more whole wheat flour. We really loved it. I've made other things out of the book, but I put it away for a while and kind of forgot about it. It's fun going through it again and seeing all of KA's ideas for using different grains.
Sonya
Cool! I'm so excited to see a recipe from this cookbook (one of my favorites and one of the ones I'm making every recipe from...just two left to go, and I'm making one of them today!). My notes on this recipe are that we found them hearty yet fluffy, and loved them both times I made them. Happy baking! P.S. If you're curious what we thought about any of the recipes, feel free to ask - though I know it's a personal thing and I'd feel bad steering you away from any that you might like more than we did.