Homemade Chocolate Digestive Biscuits

Get the kids involved with this easy to make and adaptable recipe for homemade chocolate digestive biscuits. If you want to keep little ones occupied for longer, you can make the dough by hand rather than using a food processor. Simply add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and rub the butter with your fingertips until it looks like very fine breadcrumbs. Then add the milk to bring together. You can also use a tablespoon to scoop the dough, shape into rounds and flatten with the palm of your hand instead of using a rolling pin and cutter. If you don’t have wholemeal flour you could use spelt, rye or even plain flour. Dark soft brown sugar can also be swapped for light soft brown sugar in equal quantities, the taste will be a little different but equally delicious. Any chocolate will also work in this recipe.

Method

1. Combine the wholemeal flour and oats together in a food processor and pulse the oats until they look like coarse breadcrumbs. Add the butter and pulse once again until fully incorporated.

2. Add the remaining ingredients but the milk and pulse until combined. If the dough is looking dry, you want to add one tablespoon of milk at a time until it comes together. As you’re working with wholemeal flour it will need more liquid than if you were using plain flour.

3. Remove the dough from the food processor, neatly shape into two rectangles, wrap with baking parchment and leave in the fridge for an hour. You need this time in the fridge for two reasons, first, for the gluten to relax so it keeps the shape when baking and second, so all the liquid is absorbed correctly by the flour.

4. When ready to bake, preheat your oven on Fan 180C. Dust the worktop with some flour and roll the dough with a rolling pin to a 1cm thickness. Use a round cookie cutter, cut as many rounds as possible with the dough and place on a baking tray with some baking parchment (I will reuse here the one that I used previously to wrap the dough). If you want to, you can use the back of a butter knife or a small palette knife to emboss the biscuits.

5. Bake for 15 minutes in the oven and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

6. In the meantime, melt the chocolate, this can either be done directly in a saucepan on an induction hob the warming drawer or the microwave. When melted, cover one side of the biscuits with the chocolate. Allow to cool again before serving and eating.