These are awesome biscuits — crisp on the outside, but on the inside flaky, soft, and melt-in-your mouth good. Naomi took her first bite and then said, “Mom, this just crumbles all over my mouth.” (That was how she described the melting.) I can imagine this dough being the basis for cookies, scones, and other pastries.
These divine biscuits were inspired by Kimi at The Nourishing Gourmet. She starts with whole wheat pastry flour and soaks the dough (sans baking soda, baking powder and salt) overnight.
Since I love spelt so much and since we’ve been successfully sprouting it for gluten-sensitive members of the family, I use sprouted spelt in them. This means the soaking time can be skipped entirely, as the sprouting does the soaking’s job.
If you don’t have sprouted spelt flour, use whole wheat pastry flour (but use 2-1/2 cups) or unsprouted spelt flour. For soaking instructions, visit the original recipe at The Nourishing Gourmet.
- 2-1/4 cups sprouted spelt flour (cannot be warm from grinding or will melt the coconut oil)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 6 tablespoons unrefined, virgin coconut oil, chilled if liquefied at room temp (like during the summer)
- 3/4 cup raw milk, coconut milk, or nut milk (or even water)
- 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
Preheat the oven to 45o degrees.
In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Add the coconut oil, then cut it into the flour using a pastry cutter or a fork, until the pieces of oil are the size of peas or smaller. Add the milk (or water) and vinegar. Mix lightly with a wooden spoon to barely combine the ingredients. Don’t overmix!
Transfer the dough to a clean, floured surface and roll into a rectangle about 1/2″ thick. Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut into 2″ squares.
Transfer squares to an oiled cookie sheet, leaving space between. Put sheet in oven. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to drying rack. Eat! (Try to save some for later, if you can. 
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Variation: Sprouted Spelt Scones
This post is part of the Un-Processed Food Carnival at Kitchen Stewardship.
I’m excited to try this recipe. My family loves biscuits and it had just occurred to me a couple of days ago that I might be able to substitute coconut oil. Coconut oil is a great discovery that I’ve gotten from you. I use it to replace the oil in my whole grain breakfast cookies. Thanks!
Wardeh,
Can you use gluten-free flour 1:1 for white or wheat flour?
Kelli
Kelli, pretty much, although sometimes I use a little less of the gf flour. But it depends on the flour. Some of them absorb more water, for instance buckwheat and rice do that, while corn does not. The other thing is, what type of recipe is it? if it is a gluten-dependent recipe (such as yeast bread) then it probably won’t work without other adjustments to compensate for the big job the gluten does. I don’t mean to discourage you. Perhaps you could give me more information?
I wanted to try the soaked pizza recipe from nourishinggourmet.com, and was thinking about going wheat and dairy free for 30 days or so to see if it helps me not be so tired. I was thinking about trying a amaranth, brown rice, teff blend, if Azure carries those. What do you think?
I was interested in the soaked recipes intead of the sprouted grain recipes because I don’t have a grain mill or a vita-mix as of yet.
Hi, Kelli!
Okay, I don’t want to bounce all over the place, but here’s what I think, from what you told me so far.
So as not to confuse what is making you tired, I would first start with soaking – no matter the grain. Then if you feel better, you’ll know what did it. If you do the soaking on gluten-free flours, you might not really know what the difference is, see? It could be the gluten-free, the soaking, or both? If you don’t have kefir or whey, use lemon juice or raw apple cider vinegar.
If you don’t feel better, then go with soaking the wheat-free flours. These are kamut, spelt, and/or rye, which still contain gluten. This will help you test whether it is wheat causing the fatigue.
If you don’t feel better, then go with soaking the gluten-free flours, such as corn, millet, amaranth, teff, etc.
This is what I would do in order to isolate what the problem is. But obviously, you should make your own decisions!
Now to answer your questions: The amaranth, rice and teff are not only wheat-free but they’re gluten-free. What made you choose those? I’ve found that the best gluten-free flour blends include more, rather than less, flours. I’d suggest you add buckwheat and millet, too.
Bummer that I just got back from town. I could have brought you Sue Gregg’s whole grain baking cookbook. With her recipes, you can do the soaking with whole grains and use a blender to create the dough. Check out http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/breakfasts/blenderbatterwaffles/blenderbatterwaffles.htm, but the thing is you can use any grains – kamut, corn, rice, millet, whatever, just experiment. Do you have a pretty good blender? Just as long as it is not a cheapo. Especially if you try to do corn.
I can loan you the book next week. I’ll bring it on Wed to the church. It would work with testing just soaking grains. You’d use the whole grain or the flour, doesn’t matter. Her recipes cover both.
Wardeh,
I picked the flour blend out a The Bee Well Cookbook that I just got from Amazon. I haven’t cooked anything out of it yet, but they have some soaked recipes in there. We could trade books for a week or two if you want. I have thought of trying some of Sue Gregg’s books, but she has so many I don’t know how to choose! I am easily distracted!
I have an Oster blender that I think I have had for about 14 years! I made a smoothie in it yesterday and I could smell the motor getting hot. So if it can’t handle the blender soaking recipes, I might break down and get a new one. I just can’t get a Vita-Mix yet. Unless God puts a really good deal on E-bay for me.
I probably will follow your advice on isolating the problem. It would be so much easier just buying wheat flour.
You are a wealth of information, thank you!
I love the description of crumbling in your mouth. I am excited to try this recipe. I stumbled the post.
Wardeh, Have you actually tried this recipe with water? I’m trying to find some whole grain, low fat recipes for my m-i-l recovering from heart surgery, and water would be lower fat and carb than milk…. but I don’t want to share poor-tasting biscuits…
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Katie – I haven’t.
But I am about to, because I’m sending the dry ingredients with my daughter on a trip to CA and I intend for her to use water as the liquid since she won’t have access to our goat milk or coconut milk there. I can try it tomorrow and let you know!
I made these for our lunch today, using 2 1/2 cups unsprouted spelt flour, water, and lemon juice, and they were AWESOME! My kids announced that they are going to call them “Mommy’s Best Biscuits EVER”, so that when they request biscuits I won’t confuse these with “those biscuits Mommy USED to make”.
Thank you, Wardeh!
Jamie – That’s fabulous! Thanks for telling me how much you enjoyed them. I love hearing it! I’m sending the ketchup recipe via email now.
Wardeh,
I’m looking forward to making these biscuits. They look great! I have a lot of left over liquid whey from making 30 minute mozzerella over the weekend. Do you think that whey would work as the liquid (instead of milk) for these biscuits?
Thanks,
Sara
Sara – I *think* the whey would be great in the biscuits. I would definitely try it. Let me know!
Wardeh,
I just made a batch of these biscuits with whey instead of milk, and they turned out great. Very yummy! I might try buttermilk next time…go crazy! Thanks for the great recipe.
-Sara
Sara – That’s so wonderful to hear! I’m glad it worked for you. I love this recipe because it is very versatile – we’ve done just water and they are still really good.
[...] – fruit, sprouted or soaked spelt biscuits, sprouted spelt crackers, queso fresco goat cheese, [...]
Thanks for linking into the Un-processed foods carnival! I think I like these biscuits even better made with water than a dairy product, which surprised me.
Katie
PS – next week’s theme is healthy fats, if you have any coconut oil recipes you’d like to share!
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[...] Sprouted Biscuits: I made these yesterday so we would have something to eat today (when we go to town). They were really simple! I think the hardest thing was grinding the spelt flour — and that was only hard on your ears! [...]