These whole wheat oatmeal cookies are healthy, crispy and baked to golden perfection. They are completely egg less and have no refined flour. Learn how to make whole wheat oatmeal digestive biscuits.
I have been getting a lot of requests for eggless baking. I generally prefer baking with egg – because it gives a rich taste. But there are many ways you can substitute egg with other vegan ingredients. I’ll probably make an infographic with the quantities some time later and share. These cookies however, are super healthy and super easy to bake. They don’t have any refined flour so you will have all the goodness of whole wheat and oats. They are ready under 45 minutes from start to finish including the resting time for the dough. If you want to learn how to make whole wheat oatmeal cookies, or what we generally call in India digestive biscuits this is probably the easiest recipe you can get. These are very similar to the Graham Crackers that you get in the US.
Why add Oats?
Oats are gluten free cereals and makes digestion easier. It is full of dietary fiber and Medical News Today says oats contain dietary fiber more than any other grain and have a range of healthy cholesterol-lowering properties. So when you know something is so good and is easily available then why not use it in your recipes!
Let’s Get Started
This recipe is fairly simple and requires just six ingredients. I have ground normal quick rolled oats in the mixer in a coarse powder so that it mixes in the dough well. I have done the same with sugar. I am using plain white sugar for this recipe, you could use brown sugar as well. If you use brown sugar you will get a darker colored biscuit. I am using cold butter. When you use cold butter you get firmer crumbs. You can measure the butter, and cut them into small pieces and place it in the fridge and take them out just before adding them to the dough. You will also need a little bit of milk to bring together the dough – about 1/3rd cup.
The Biscuit Dough
Add baking soda and salt to whole wheat flour and mix well with a spoon. This is like activating the flour. In a mixing bowl bring together powdered sugar and cold butter. Mix them with your fingers to make a coarse crumb. Add whole wheat flour and oats powder to it and combine with your hands. Add milk gradually to make dough. You don’t need to knead the dough. Combine the ingredients together as you would do for a short crust pastry.
Wrap the dough in cling film and place it in the refrigerator (not freezer) for 15 minutes. While the biscuit dough is in the fridge, pre heat oven at 180C/ 350F. Line a baking tray with baking sheet / parchment paper and grease it well with butter/ cooking spray.
Take out the dough from the fridge, dust the kitchen surface with some flour and roll out the dough. Keep it about 4 mm thick so that you get chunky biscuits.
Use a cookie cutter of any shape of your choice to make even shapes. At this step I realized I don’t own a simple round cookie cutter but have a box full of weird shaped cutters including hearts and spades and what not. So I used a jar lid that’s why my biscuits are chunkier than what you would get with a cookie cutter. I actually liked it that way.
With a fork make marks on the biscuit.
Now bake these biscuits for 15 – 16 minutes. Once baked, place them on a cooling rack till they are cool.
What else can you do?
This is the base whole wheat oatmeal digestive biscuit recipe, with this you can get creative. You can add some chocolate chips, or use royal icing, dip them in chocolate, make different shapes – whatever you want to. I went ahead and made 3 batches with the dough. This recipe will make about 15 big biscuits.
I made some hearts, some with chocolate chip ones – basically a jar full of biscuits. You can store these in an air tight container for 4-5 days. They don’t have any preservatives, so consume fresh and don’t let them sit for weeks.
Notes
The second batch of biscuits in heart shape turned out darker because
- The oven was hot after the first batch
- These cookies are smaller and thinner
- I placed them on the higher wire stand to get this color.
- Whole wheat flour – 3/4th cup
- Instant Oats – 1 cup, powdered
- Sugar – 8 tablespoons, powdered
- Baking Soda – 1 teaspoon
- Salt – 1 pinch
- Butter – 2 tablespoons, cold, cut into pieces
- Milk – 1/3rd cup (to make dough)
- Mix baking soda and salt to whole wheat flour
- In a mixing bowl combine sugar and cold butter with fingers till they form a coarse crumb
- Add whole wheat flour and oats and mix with hands
- Do not knead
- Add required milk to combine the crumbs in a dough
- Rest the dough wrapped in cling wrap in the fridge for 15 mins
- Pre-heat oven at 180C/350F
- Line a baking tray with baking sheet/ parchment paper and grease with butter/ cooking spray
- Roll out dough with 4mm thickness
- Use cookie cutter to get desired cookie shapes
- Make marks with a fork
- Bake for 15-16 minutes or till they get golden
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They look delicious. Parcel them to my add plz 😛
This also made me think – I need to add to the post 1 line – they were made day before yesterday – 1 jar of biscuits and only 2 of them are there in the jar!
This is so easy to make. I just need to buy some rolled oats. Thanks for the recipe Tina. Something I can try without burning the house down 😉
LOL, you wont burn anything, believe me, most of my recipes are simple ones.
Yummy and at the sane time healthy too 🙂
Will try this one
Do try, it’s very simple.
looks simple to try…
Thanks Manisha, yes pretty simple
They look so delicious! Guilt free indulgence!
Seriously they are guilt free. Thanks for dropping by Neha
They look delicious..I dont mind egg but this recipe looks easy. noting down all the recipes to try whenever I get time 🙂
My LATEST POST- http://kreativemommy.com/5-nutrition-queries-solutions-kids/
Thanks Deepa, do let me know how you enjoyed making them!
These biscuits looks so delicious. And without eggs.. sounds to good to be true 🙂
Thank you Cecilia. Simpleton biscuits I would say!
Wow, Tina. This looks easy and tasty. Will get my oven fixed and get back. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
you are welcome Ramya, yeah start baking easy stuffs when your oven gets fixed.
Wow! I loved the presentation! 🙂 And have to appreciate the effort you always put through to prepare and present such beautiful dishes. Kudos! 🙂
I gave it 5 stars but its showing only 4 :/ 🙁
This looks really good Tina! Bookmarked to try soon 🙂
Oh, I loved the heart shaped cookies more- for obvious reasons! 🙂
Looks easy and definitely tempting!
it’s simple to make, packed with fibre & great for the lunchbox or an afternoon snack!
While I am not a big fan of oats, these biscuits look really delicious :D.
Good article , thanks and we would like extra! Added to FeedBurner as nicely
Thanks to my father who stated to me regarding
this webpage, this webpage is really awesome.
Just tried this super easy recipe….cookies turned out
So crisp and delicious….Thanks for such a healthy and easy recipe
This looks interesting, easy to make and yummy. Did you know i created a bigoven recipes so that i can save your recipes 🙂 its great that you have an app which makes it easy.. now i am going to try to try these out 🙂
Thanks for sharing the recipe Tina. I added some cranberries and slivered almonds . They are sooo yumm 😊 I added desi shakkar(brown Indian sugar) but they were not as sweet as I expected .
I am one of the readers who keeps looking out for eggless recipes and I am glad I got to read this for keepsake☺👍
I tried these biscuits today. They turned out to be delicious. Thanks for the recipe.
2 tablespoons butter how many grams?
These cookies for me and my family are just synonymous with Christmas!
I love that these are eggless. I can’t wait to make them!
I love oats in everything and they are so very good for you. These cookies look amazing and I especially love the ones with jelly in the center… yum!
I love how simple these are to make. They look wonderful with a cup of tea!
This is so perfect to go with my coffee. Thanks for the recipe.
These look absolutely delicious and I am going to make some over the holidays thank you. Kaz
You had me at eggless. Its difficult to get good eggless recipes online. I am glad i saw this. I am surely gonna try it and get back 😍
Looks yummy, nice designs too 🙂