This old farmhouse recipe for digestion biscuits creates a crunchy biscuit that is rather similar to a Hovis biscuit or cracker (the sort found in Jacob’s biscuits for cheese tubs), with the texture and flavour of modern digestive biscuits, although these digestion biscuits are much chunkier. They are also rather like a thick Scottish oatcake.

These biscuits are prepared with wholemeal flour and medium oatmeal, resulting in a lovely crunchy texture. The other ingredients you will need are sugar, salt, bicarbonate of soda, butter or margarine, and an egg.

The idea behind digestion biscuits is that they are full of roughage, otherwise known as fibre, as they are baked with wholemeal flour and oatmeal, making them good for keeping the digestion happy!

Origin of digestion biscuits

Digestive biscuits date back to the 19th century when they were first created by Scottish doctors Alexander Grant and Thomas Grant, who worked for the famous McVitie’s biscuit company. They believed that the inclusion of bicarbonate of soda in the recipe would aid digestion by reducing stomach acid.

The Victorians particularly enjoyed these “biscuits for digestion”. During this time, digestive biscuits often took the place of bread; as they could be spread with butter and enjoyed with cheese. Most country families or farmhouses had their own family recipe for digestion biscuits.

Digestive biscuits are still very popular in the UK today, especially chocolate digestives, which, in a 2022 poll to discover the leading brand of sweet biscuits in Great Britain, topped the leaderboard.

Farmhouse digestion biscuits

I discovered this recipe for old-fashioned digestion biscuits in my book, ‘Reader’s Digest Farmhouse Cookery Recipes from the Country Kitchen’ (reprinted edition 1993), with the original recipe on page 287.

The changes I made to the recipe included adding an extra teaspoon of milk because my small egg wasn’t enough to bring the biscuit dough together. I also rolled out the dough to a thinner size than the stated 1/2 [half] inch, as I thought these would yield biscuits that were too thick. Of course, if you prefer thicker biscuits, feel free to try baking them that way and let me know the results! Instead, I rolled them out to about 1/4 [quarter] inch, although a few were a little thicker than that, and all the biscuits turned out nice and crunchy.

If you would like to prepare home-made chocolate digestion biscuits then you can top the digestion biscuits with a coating of either melted milk chocolate or dark chocolate.

For another farmhouse biscuit recipe do have a look at our Cornish Fairings recipe. If you enjoy ginger nut biscuits you will love these Cornish fairings.

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Digestion Biscuits [old farmhouse recipe for digestive biscuits]

This old farmhouse recipe for digestion biscuits creates a crunchy biscuit that is rather similar to a Hovis biscuit or cracker (the sort found in Jacob's biscuits for cheese tubs), with the texture and flavour of modern digestive biscuits, although these digestion biscuits are much chunkier. They are also rather like a thick Scottish oatcake.

Course Breakfast, lunch, Snack

Cuisine British, Scottish

Keyword biscuits for the digestion, digestion biscuits, digestive biscuits, farmhouse biscuit recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12 -14 biscuits

Author Leigh

Equipment

• baking trays
• parchment paper
• mixing bowl
• mixing spoon
• Rolling Pin
• 3 inch biscuit cutter

Ingredients

• 125 grams medium oatmeal [steel-cut oatmeal], plus extra to dust the work surface
• 125 grams wholemeal flour [wholewheat flour]
• 50 grams granulated sugar [or caster sugar]
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda [baking soda]
• 75 grams butter or margarine
• 1 small egg, beaten [if necessary you may require a teaspoon of milk to bind the ingredients if your egg is not enough]

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 190℃ [375℉] or gas mark 5.
• Line the baking trays with parchment paper.
• Add the oatmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and bicarbonate of soda to a mixing bowl.
  125 grams medium oatmeal, 125 grams wholemeal flour, 50 grams granulated sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• Stir the dry ingredients.
• Next, add the butter to the bowl in small pieces.
  75 grams butter or margarine
• Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Now, add the egg and mix it into the ingredients. Keep mixing, as it may take a few minutes to stir the egg properly through the ingredients.
  1 small egg, beaten
• Use your hands to bring the mixture into a ball of biscuit dough. Depending on how large your egg was, you may not have enough to bring all the mixture together, so you can add a teaspoon of milk and mix this through.
• Once the biscuit dough has formed, sprinkle oatmeal over your work surface and dust the rolling pin with some oatmeal.
• Gently pat the biscuit dough down with your hands. Any sticky bits can have oatmeal sprinkled over.
• Using the rolling pin, roll the dough to about ¼ inch thick or a little thicker. If you want thicker digestion biscuits, then you will end up with a few less than stated in the servings section above.
• Carefully stamp out biscuits using the biscuit cutter and place each biscuit onto the baking tray. You won't need to keep too much space between each biscuit, just about an inch or just under, as they won't spread too much; rather, they will rise a little.
• Keep sprinkling extra oatmeal onto the biscuit dough if you come across a sticky part. Also, bring the dough back together whenever necessary and roll it out again to finish stamping out the biscuits.
• Bake on the middle shelf for 10-15 minutes. I used an electric oven [190℃] and the biscuits were baked after 14 minutes.
• Once ready, the biscuits will be firm to the touch, lightly golden around the edges (although as they are a brown color going into the oven, this may be hard to decipher!), but they will still be soft in the middle as they will crisp up more as they cool.
• After a few minutes of cooling on the baking tray, remove the biscuits to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes

1. Store digestive biscuits within an airtight biscuit tin or container for up to a week.
2. If you would like to prepare home-made chocolate digestion biscuits then you can top the digestion biscuits with a coating of either melted milk chocolate or dark chocolate.
3. We used butter for our biscuits but you can use any margarine that is suitable for baking.
4. If preferred you can use plain flour or all-purpose flour instead of wholemeal flour.
5. Wholewheat flour is the same as wholemeal flour.
6. You can use caster sugar instead of granulated sugar.
7. You can enjoy these biscuits as they are but as they are a biscuit you will need a nice cup of tea, coffee, or milk!
8. You can spread butter or margarine over these biscuits, or perhaps some fruit jam, peanut butter, or chocolate spread.
9. Slices of cheese also pair very nicely with digestion biscuits.
10. You can use these biscuits as a home-made cracker.

Do let us know if you bake these digestion biscuits as we would love to know what you think!