Sunday, January 15, 2012

Fantastic Soaked Whole Wheat Biscuits

I am SO excited about this new recipe I found at Nourished Kitchen for soaked whole wheat biscuits!

Here's why I'm so excited: although he happily eats all kinds of weird kitchen experiments, my husband is not a huge fan of soup.  Especially because soup is often my sneaky attempt to provide a full meal with whatever small amount of leftover meat we have on hand, I think he often feels like he is getting cheated out of a full dinner when we have soup.  It makes a lovely side dish, but, "is this all we're having?"  

Fortunately, since I love soup, and it's cheap, easy, and crock-pot friendly, he will eat soup much more happily if it is accompanied by some type of bread for dunking purposes.  In the past, this has generally meant either biscuits or cornbread, because they are really fast and I don't have to think about them ahead of time.  Soup days, thus, had become one of the few times we consumed white flour at dinner - so much for a totally healthy, guilt-free meal!

My past attempt at soaked cornbread from Nourishing Traditions (also baked at 9000 ft) was not a success, and neither was my last attempt at soaked whole wheat biscuits.  I don't remember where that recipe came from - another blog, I think - but I don't think you would want me to share it with you anyway!  Those biscuits turned out like flat, hard rocks.  Good thing we had some soup to eat with them to make them somewhat edible!

I love this new recipe I found for a few reasons:
  1. The biscuits are light, moist, and fluffy!  Way fluffier than your standard whole wheat fare.
  2. They have way more delicious flavor than their white-flour counterparts.
  3. The flour in the biscuits soaks in buttermilk (or in my case, yogurt mixed with some raw milk) overnight, which helps neutralize the phytic acid content of the whole wheat and makes the nutrients in the wheat easier for the body to absorb.  This is also what helps the biscuits fluff up so well and not taste so heavy and "whole grain-y."
  4. To go along with #3, these biscuits pass the Pregnancy Heartburn Test!!  Right now, being 7 months pregnant, I have this convenient little indicator for when I have eaten things that are not digesting ideally - raging heartburn!  Most grains give me trouble (especially wheat... rice is fine), but sprouted bread is okay, and these biscuits are burn-free!  Not only do I not have to be uncomfortable after eating them, but I can feel more confident that they are easy for my body to digest, rather than placing a burden on my digestion.  
  5. They are an excellent butter vehicle.  :)  Funnily enough, butter (contrary to the warnings of most mainstream pregnancy books), doesn't bother my heartburn in the least.
I have been debating whether to post the recipe for the biscuits here, with my one change (2 Tbsp. yogurt stirred into 1 c milk, to replace the "freshly cultured buttermilk" called for in the recipe), but I didn't really change it enough to make it "mine," and I don't want to rip off Jenny's hard work.


They are excellent.  If you are looking for a delicious way to rid your life of a little white flour, I highly recommend them.

Have you tried any whole wheat or soaked whole wheat recipes?  What kind of success have you had?  Have you ever noticed grains or any other kind of food aggravating or irritating your digestion?


Posted at WFMW and Living Well

1 comment:

  1. We use only whole grains these days although I don't normally soak them... only when we make porridge. They don't cause any digestive problems for me as far as I can tell and the only time I've ever had heart burn in my life was when I was pregnant and then only a few times. In fact I had no idea what I was experiencing and it took a few bouts for my husband to finally say "um, yeah, that's indigestion". Oddly, since pregnancy cranberry juice, which I used to love, upsets my stomach as soon as I drink it. Weird.

    I want to give your soaked biscuits a try though b/c I'm not the world's best biscuit maker and mine are almost always too dense. Not horrible, but not amazingly fluffy like my mom's whole wheat biscuits (she's got the pie crust knack too).

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