Gluten Free Digestive Biscuits

Digestive biscuits don’t look like much, but the reality is that they’re a satisfying and comforting biscuit that is great for dunking. This gluten-free digestive biscuit recipe is perfect for those who can’t or doesn’t want to eat gluten who still fancy a traditional digestive biscuit.

These gluten-free digestive biscuits are a great staple to keep in your pantry or biscuit tin for when you have a nice cup of tea or when you just fancy a snack to keep you going. They are also great to pack In your packed lunch for work or to put in your children’s packed lunch.

If you keep your cupboard stocked with these delicious biscuity staples, you will always manage to find a gluten-free snack. You will also always be able to offer a gluten-free snack to guests who may need to eat gluten-free.

This recipe uses a range of flours to make these digestive biscuits gluten-free and give them the same texture and flavour as regular digestive biscuits.

Gluten-free digestive biscuit instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 c fan assisted oven or 190 C for a non-fan assisted oven.
2. Sift all the flours together into a flour blend in a large mixing bowl along with the xantham gum, sea salt, muscovado sugar, and baking powder.
3. Add the butter and rub it into the dry mix until you get a breadcrumb-like consistency. If you don’t want to do this part by hand, you can also put them into the food processor and mix until you get the same breadcrumb-like consistency.
4. Now add the milk a dash at a time and stir/ fold in until the breadcrumb-like mixture forms into a dough.
5. When the dough has formed, it’s a good idea to shape the dough into a ball, wrap the dough, and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes to half an hour. This keeps the dough nice and firm and makes rolling it out much easier.
6. Once the dough is cool enough to roll out nicely, sprinkle tapioca starch or cornflour on the surface you will be rolling it on and on the rolling pin. This will stop the dough from sticking.
7. Alternatively, you can put the ball of dough in between two sheets of parchment paper and roll the dough through the paper.
8. Roll the dough out to 3-4 mm and then use a biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits.
9. Any leftover dough can be brought back together, re-rolled out, and made into one or two more biscuits.
10. Using a toothpick or a fork, prick the top of the biscuit randomly.
11. Place your raw gluten-free digestive biscuits on parchment paper and put them in the centre of the oven.
12. Bake your gluten-free digestive biscuits for about 11 minutes. You should start to see the outside of your biscuits browning a little, which will tell you it’s time to take them out.
13. When cooked, let them cool for a few minutes to harden slightly before transferring them to a cooling rack where they can cool completely to room temperature.

Making the Digestive chocolate topping

If you want to make your gluten-free digestive biscuits into gluten-free chocolate digestive biscuits them follow these next steps.

1. Break your chocolate up into pieces.
2. Melt either in a microwave or a bain-marie.
3. Once completely melted, you can pour a drop of the melted chocolate onto the gluten-free digestive biscuits.
4. Use a knife or spoon to gently spread the chocolate over the top of the gluten-free digestive biscuits.
5. Allow the chocolate to harden and enjoy.

Baking tips:

• Check your biscuits from around 9 minutes onwards. Some ovens cook faster than others, and so you will want to make sure you don’t accidentally over bake yours. Do this until you know how quickly your individual oven cooks this recipe.

• Make sure you only add the melted chocolate onto the gluten-free digestive biscuits once the biscuits are completely cool. You want the chocolate to harden again quickly once it has been applied. Without cool biscuits, the chocolate will just melt off.

• Add the milk very slowly to judge the texture of the dough. You may not need all of it, and you won’t want to use too much when pulling the dough together.

FAQ’S

Can I make this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe dairy-free?

Yes, this is very easy to do, and the recipe will work just as well dairy-free.

Simply replace the butter with a dairy-free alternative such as vegan butter.

A dairy-free alternative for milk will also work fine in this recipe, such as almond, coconut, or oat.

You can also buy dairy-free chocolate if you want to make a chocolate gluten-free digestive biscuit.

Can I use regular sugar instead of brown muscovado sugar in these gluten-free digestive biscuits?

You can use normal granulated sugar if you prefer instead of brown sugar. However, it will alter the texture and flavour. You may also find that without muscovado sugar, your biscuit won’t quite hold together as well.

Can I use bicarbonate of soda instead of baking powder?

If you don’t have any baking powder, you can use bicarbonate of soda instead.

Where can I get the ingredients for this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe?

While gluten-free baking is definitely becoming more mainstream, and you can usually get all of your baking items from the supermarket, you might not be able to get them all from the shops for this recipe.

For some of the ingredients in this gluten-free digestive biscuits recipe, you may need to head to your local health food store or order them online. So this recipe may take a little bit of fore planning before you can get down to baking it.

What is the best way to store these biscuits?

To keep these biscuits fresh and crunchy, make sure you keep them in an airtight container.

How do I melt the chocolate without burning it?

There is definitely a knack for melting chocolate, and you need to do it in certain ways to stop it from burning.

You could use a bain-marie to melt your chocolate. To make a home bain-marie with your general kitchen equipment, put a pot of boiling water on the stove and then a bowl on top of the pot. Now put your broken-up chocolate pieces on the hob and keep stirring until melted.

This method provides a very gentle heat, and so you don’t risk burning your chocolate. This is the best way.

Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave, but you need to stop every 10 seconds or so to stir it. Keep doing this until your chocolate is melted. Don’t put your chocolate in the microwave for an extended period as you risk burning it.

Digestive biscuits are a treat you definitely just don’t want to go without, so why should you just because you have to go gluten-free? Well, this gluten and wheat free biscuits recipe means that you don’t have to.

Of all the gluten-free recipes, this is a really simple and easy biscuits recipe that you can make regular and keep stocked to enjoy whenever you need a gluten-free treat.

Optional ingredients:

If you want to make chocolate digestive biscuits, then you will need either milk chocolate or dark chocolate, depending on your preference.