May ABC Challenge: English Digestive Biscuits

I've been a long-time fan of digestives.  I don't know what they're "supposed" to taste like, exactly, but since I thoroughly enjoy the McVitie's brand, that has become my ideal. They're very short, not too sweet, with a nubbly texture and a little bit of salt just on the tongue.  But they're also expensive.  So when I found a recipe for digestives years ago by Marion Cunningham (from whom delicious things issue), I gave it a go.  Unfortunately, her recipe fell far short of expectation.  (I think it was the egg.  From now on I vow to spurn any digestive recipe containing egg.)

I've been intending to have a Digestive Bake-Off  in order to find a recipe with that perfect balance of shortening, sugar, and salt and just the right crumbly texture. This month's challenge gave me a chance to make some headway, at least with one recipe.  I  tried to follow it faithfully, since you can't compare recipes if you start mucking with them.  I  must confess, though, that on seeing the recipe contained no salt I knew that they would not pass muster.  Therefore, I changed the butter to salted.  I also made only one quarter of the recipe, which could have altered the proportions slightly due to the smaller margin of error.

Here's what I used to produce 8 biscuits:

1/2 cup 1/8 cup (0.5 ounce) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups 3/8 cup (2.5 ounce) whole wheat flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted salted butter at room temperature
3/4 scant 1/4 cup (0.75 ounce) confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup 1 tablespoon (0.5 ounce) cold milk

Baked at 350°F for 15 minutes, the thinner ones over-browned on the edges. 

 

Conclusion:  These were quite good, but ultimately lacked something.  They were about the right level of sweetness, but the salt was completely integrated and wasn't detectable.  The texture was quite smooth.  The ones that had browned too much had a better taste and texture, with the butter having nicely crisped up the dough, while the blonder ones tasted a little raw and were slightly tougher.  It could be that I didn't prick them enough.  (Since I'll be making several different recipes over time, I wanted to mark each with the recipe source.  I should have just pricked right through the name!)

Original recipe:  English Digestive Biscuits via King Arthur Flour