Digestive Cookies

If this sounds like some sort of health food to you, relax and keep reading! Digestive cookies (or biscuits) are a common item on cookie shelves in Canada and the UK. I seem to like making cookies that are easy to find in stores, as the oreos, graham crackers and this recipe show. I'm not a (complete) nut, it's just that homemade is better! Digestives are available plain or chocolate dipped and are the perfect partner for a cup of tea or coffee. They are often used as cheesecake bases, but are also an ideal accompaniment to a cheese plate.

With cheese or with tea, you'll love them

Here in Canada, there is usually only one brand of digestives available, but when I was in England, Scotland and Ireland people had very strong opinions about which brand I should buy. I was a very good sport and tried them all! My first batch were crisper than store-bought, but I couldn't stop nibbling on them. The flavour was a bit sweet and salty, with a wonderful grain taste and texture. For the second batch, I made balls of dough and pressed them with the 'homemade' stamp. These were thicker than the first batch, and I didn't bake them as long, making them soft and crumbly. I really can't decide which I like better as they were both so good. I even made an ice cream sandwich with them, but I left it in the freezer when I left town, so I can't tell you too much about that!
I used whole wheat flour from a local farm, and it was milled from Red Fife wheat right in front of me at the farmers' market. You can also use half or all spelt flour instead, and while I also bought freshly milled spelt flour I haven't tried making the digestive with that yet.

Digestives
Makes 35-40
From River Cottage Every Day

250 grams/8.8 ounces whole wheat flour
250 grams/8.8 ounces quick-cooking oatmeal
125 grams/4.4 ounces soft brown sugar
2 teaspoons fine sea salt (this gave a distinct salty edge--can halve it if you like)
2 teaspoons baking powder
250 grams/8.8 ounces unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
about 1 tablespoon milk (I needed a bit more)

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine. This amount filled my food processor, but it was fine. Add butter and but in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. You can also do this easily by hand--it's a bit like making pie crust.
2. Gradually add the milk and pulse until it comes together into a slightly sticky dough. I found it easiest to do this by hand, after transferring it to a large bowl. 
3. Flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate about 30 minutes, or for a few days. Remove from the fridge about an hour before you want to bake it, as it gets very hard.
4. Preheat oven to 180℃/350℉. Dust the table and dough with flour and roll to 3-4 mm thickness/¹⁄₈", or thicker for a softer, crumblier cookie. The dough is sticky and crumbly, but if you are gentle it's easy to roll. Cut with a 6-7 cm (2½") cutter and transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, checking after 5. You want them to be golden brown around the edges and lightly coloured on top. Let cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Blueberry great grains muffins

These muffins were the perfect way to jump back into the routine of Tuesdays with Dorie. I can hardly believe I missed 5 weeks, but I am glad to be back. I am finally feeling better and I definitely have my sweet tooth back, and it's making up for lost time! These muffins were actually not too sweet, and didn't taste like cake masquerading as a muffin. That's a good thing, in my book. I like to keep breakfast and dessert somewhat separate. 

The recipe called for prunes, which I love, but only to snack on. There's something about rehydrated dried fruit that's weird. It's not dried, but it's still not fresh. Weird. So, I used fresh blueberries and some candied orange peel to flavour these. I also used more whole wheat flour and less white flour than the recipe called for, and these were not dense or tough at all. They definitely had texture, as I used a stoneground polenta and coarsely ground whole wheat flour. Oh, and I used some butter and some canola oil instead of all butter, because the butter was frozen. Everything is frozen here, actually. 

:)

The first muffin I ate plain, hot from the oven: delicious. The second I ate at room temperature with butter: delicious. The rest? I froze them before they disappeared too. Actually, I only baked 6, and froze the rest of the batter in my new muffin tin with a lid (finally!). So, I'll be able to pull that out and bake these fresh another day. I'll let you know how that turns out.

This week's recipe was selected by Christine at HappyTummy, so if you'd like to make these, head over there for the recipe. Thanks for a great pick, Christine--I'll be snacking on these for a while! As always, check out the LYL (leave your link) post on the Tuesdays with Dorie page to see who else made these, and how they changed them up.

Wheaten bread

I'm not a bread fanatic. You know, one of those people who claims they could live on nothing but bread. I don't get it. I like bread. I've had amazing bread. I've even made some pretty amazing bread. But, really, isn't bread a buttery-delivery vehicle? Now, bread and butter, that's another story. And honey, mmmm. Don't even get me started on cheese. Occasionally I'll make a meal of a nice baguette and some stinky cheese. Maybe I do love bread after all.

Bread did form a huge part of my diet for the month I spent in Belfast. I was working, so I didn't have a lot of time to eat out, but I didn't find the food scene to be the most inspiring. I don't think I ever got over the shock of being told to buy my groceries at the gas station. Now, it was a proper little grocery store with produce, nothing like the stores attached to gas stations here, but still. A few times I walked 3 or 4 kilometres to Marks and Spencer, or to another large store, but I usually didn't have time. And, if groceries at the gas station weren't strange enough, they had Tim Horton's coffee and donuts! Yes, I know that Timmy's has taken the apostrophe out of their name, but I'm a bit of a stickler that way. It wasn't regular Tim's coffee, though. It was a machine that made lattes and other fake, frothy looking things. The donuts were plastic-wrapped. I didn't try either of them. Just knowing it was there was enough. For my non-Canadian readers, Tim Horton's is a nationwide chain of coffee shops. It's cheap, and many Canadians need a cup of Timmy's to start their day.

So what did I eat? Bread, of course! Wasn't that the whole point of this meandering post? Store-bought, wheaten bread, toasted and slathered with butter and honey. And I drank lots of tea. This is what I had for breakfast and dinner (and occasionally at 3 in the morning too, because you'll feel better in the morning if you eat something to absorb all that liquid in your stomach).

When it was time to think about leaving, I got a bit panicky. I needed a good recipe for wheaten bread, and fast. Luckily I had a group of Irish trainees to supply recipes, and I came home with one, and a large bag of coarsely ground whole wheat flour. I made it often when I first came back, and still make it every couple of months.

UPDATE:

This is the recipe I've been making most often. It's adapted from the back of a bag of Odlum's Stoneground Coarse Wholemeal.

10 ounces coarsely ground whole wheat flour
6 ounces all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 ounces cold butter
1 egg
425 ml buttermilk

Preheat oven to 300℉. Grease a loaf pan.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut butter in until it resembles coarse crumbs. Whisk egg and buttermilk together and pour over dry ingredients. Mix quickly and as little as possible. Turn into the greased pan and make a slash down the centre. The dough will be quite sticky. Don't worry about it. Make a lengthwise slash down the centre with a sharp knife and bake for 1¼ to 1½ hours, until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Turn out onto a rack, and wrap in a tea towel if you like the crust soft.
Eat with butter and honey. This bread doesn't keep well, so I usually slice and freeze it, and toast the frozen slices.
Yield: 1 dense, craggy, cakey loaf.

I always serve this with ginger honey, which is just honey that I've stirred finely grated fresh ginger into. I use my rasp. This stuff keeps forever at room temperature and never crystallizes. It's amazing on pretty much anything.