Whole Wheat Yogurt Biscuits
“Just make the damn biscuits.” - Linsey Corbin
Inspiration:
“Just make the damn biscuits.” was the text to my sister after I made these. Chris (my husband) lives for biscuits. Personally, I was not fully on board with biscuits - until now.
First off, let’s just get this out of the way - these aren’t a “healthy” biscuit - but they do incorporate whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt. A successful biscuit needs butter to be flakey, crumbly and light. I believe that as an endurance athlete, you need fat and substance in your diet as well. My philosophy in regards to food has always been - everything in moderation. Therefore, after the traditional “Sunday Runday”, when we sit down for morning brunch, you bet I am going to be eating a real-deal biscuit, and I encourage you all to do the same.
Do you not consider yourself a baker?
Don’t be intimidated - these are easy to make, kinda-messy to mix, and the only hot tip is don’t over-mix your dough. You can also make these advance, store them in the fridge or freezer & have biscuits on the table in 20’ or so. Impressive.
There you have it, these are amazing and if you were getting a text from me on a Sunday afternoon, I am pretty sure I would say: “just make the damn biscuits.”
Enjoy.
xx, linsey
Ingredients:
Makes 8 biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher sea salt
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup plain yogurt, regular or greek
1/4 cup milk
2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold and cut into small (1-inch) pieces
1 egg, beaten
optional: flaky sea salt & sugar in the raw (aka demerara sugar)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425˚F. Prepare a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.
Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl mixing bowl.
Next add in the butter. The goal here is to keep the butter as cold as possible, so I prefer to cut it into small pieces right out of the fridge and add it straight to the flour mixture. Use your fingers (which is ideal) or a fork and knife to smoosh or ‘cut’ the cold butter into the flour mixture. Keep smooshing the butter until it’s well incorporated but you can still see flaky pieces about the size of dimes in the flour.
Add the yogurt and milk to the buttery flour and mix everything together gently (use your hands, get messy!) until it starts to form a ball. Knead the dough gently a few times in the bowl to get up any stray dry ingredients then transfer to a lightly-floured counter. Knead a few more times, but go really easy on the dough.
Gently pat or roll the dough to a 1½ inch thick rectangle and cut into 8 squares. You can use a cutter for round biscuits if you’d like, but square biscuits mean no waste and lots of crispy edges!
Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and brush the tops with the beaten egg, and a sprinkle with flaky sea salt and/or sugar-in-the-raw (I do both!).
Bake for 20-25 minutes until you can see flaky layers and the biscuits are a deep golden brown.
Serve warm.
A few quick notes:
The key to a good, flakey biscuit is to not overwork the dough. The more you knead the dough, the more the butter will break down (which means less flakiness) and the tighter the gluten will become (which means tough biscuits = aka, hockey pucks).
Don’t be afraid of butter. As they say, butter makes it better. My food outlook as an athlete is “everything in moderation.” Butter makes these biscuits super tasty (and, science! you need butter to yield a flaky dough), so save these biscuits for a “treat yourself” brunch & don’t feel guilty about it - you earned it!
Leftover biscuits don’t taste nearly as great as they do fresh out of the oven, so if you won’t be eating them right away, bake what you’d like and put the others in the freezer or fridge. They can be frozen for up to three months or refrigerated for a couple of days. When you’re ready for round 2, bake as above but add a few extra minutes.
Looking for an excellent pairing? Check out my strawberry-rhubarb jam.