Crisp on the outside yet flaky, soft, and melt-in-your-mouth on the inside, these sprouted spelt biscuits are delicious slathered with butter and jam or dipped in chili! Make them in less than 20 minutes!
No matter when or how you serve them (my favorite might be hot out of the oven slathered with homemade cultured butter!), these are awesome biscuits!
My daughter 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, sprouted scones, and other pastries. This variation, Cinnamon Honey Spelt Biscuits {soaked or sprouted}, is just as delicious!
How To Get Flaky Biscuits
Oftentimes, when using a whole grain flour for baking pastries and other breads, you can end up with a dense, dry, and crumbly end result that no one wants to eat.
This recipe, however, uses sprouted spelt flour, which yields a much finer texture (some say it’s less “sandy” than other whole grain flours) and because it’s sprouted, we don’t need to soak the dough before baking since it’s already neutralized.
Then finally, the addition of coconut oil, the vinegar/milk (a.k.a. “buttermilk”) mixture, and cutting the biscuits into squares instead of using a pastry cutter (requiring the remaining dough to become overworked and tough) creates perfectly flaky buttermilk spelt biscuits.
These divine spelt 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.
Why Use Sprouted Spelt Flour?
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 these biscuits. This means soaking the whole grains can be skipped entirely, as the sprouting does the soaking’s job.
Traditional recipes are always soaked, soured, or sprouted before eating like Soaked Spelt Banana Bread and Sprouted Pumpkin Spice Coffee Cake. Each of these processes neutralizes the phytic acid in grains, and makes the end result easier to digest.
We like to use spelt because it’s an ancient grain and has a nice soft texture once ground.
How To Make Flaky Spelt Biscuits
Because we’re using soaked flour, these biscuits whip together in a flash and can be started and finished in just under 20 minutes. It’s worth the step of sprouting your grain ahead of time to have quick and easy recipes like this.
(Learn how to sprout grains and how long will sprouted grains last!)
1. Once you have your sprouted spelt berries, you’ll need to grind them into flour. (Find out why we love grinding grain in our Mockmill home grain mill.)
2. Grab a large bowl and whisk together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt.
3. Add the coconut oil to the bowl, then cut it into the flour using a pastry cutter, a fork, or your hands until the pieces of oil are the size of peas or smaller.
4. Add vinegar to your milk and let sit for 5 minutes or so (this creates a quick buttermilk substitute).
5. Using a wooden spoon, mix lightly until the dough just comes together (don’t overmix!).
6. Transfer the dough to a clean, lightly floured surface and roll the dough out into a rectangle about 1/2-inch thick. Pat the dough into a rectangle if any of your edges get too thin.
7. Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut your biscuits into 2-inch squares. (Alternatively, you could use a biscuit cutter or even drinking glasses to cut your dough into circles, but cutting squares eliminates the need to overwork the remaining dough.)
8. Transfer squares to a well-oiled baking sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes in a 450 degree Fahrenheit oven.
Once these delicious sprouted spelt biscuits are done, slice them in half, slather them in butter, and enjoy!
What To Serve These Biscuits With
We love to serve these spelt biscuits up for breakfast topped with butter, or with pumpkin seed butter and this Instant Pot mixed berry chia seed jam (pictured above) or alongside this 30-minute classic chili recipe for lunch or dinner.
They’re also amazing with this homemade chicken pot pie soup or any of these blended soup recipes.
Sprouted Spelt Biscuits
Crisp on the outside yet flaky, soft, and melt-in-your-mouth, these sprouted spelt biscuits are delicious slathered with butter and jam or dipped in chili! Make them in less than 20 minutes!
Ingredients
- 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 coconut oil chilled if liquefied at room temp (like during the summer)
- 3/4 cup raw whole milk OR coconut milk, or nut milk (or even pure water)
- 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
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In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt.
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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.
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Add the milk (or water) and vinegar mixture.
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Mix lightly with a wooden spoon to barely combine the ingredients. Don't overmix!
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Transfer the dough to a clean, floured surface and roll into a rectangle about 1/2-inch thick.
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Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut into 2-inch squares.
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Transfer squares to an oiled cookie sheet, leaving space between.
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Put sheet in oven.
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Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown.
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Transfer to cooling rack.
Recipe Notes
- Mix the vinegar and milk together about 5 to 10 minutes beforehand to create "buttermilk".
- Make sure your spelt flour is not warm from grinding or it will melt the coconut oil.
- 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.
- 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. We converted them to a sprouted dough for a quicker start to finish time.
Variation: Sprouted Spelt Scones!
This post was originally published and written by Wardee Harmon on 4/23/09. It was updated and republished on 4/24/20.
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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!
Wardee,
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.
Wardee,
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.
Wardee, 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…
.-= Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship´s last blog post… Real Food Wednesday: Seeking Information about Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Diet =-.
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, Wardee!
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.
Wardee,
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!
Wardee,
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.
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!
.-= Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship´s last blog post… Monday Mission: Read up on Canola Oil =-.
I made these today and they were very good, a little coconutty for me. Can lard or tallow be used intsead of coconut oil? I also think that I could have added more salt. My oven doesn’t get hot enough and I cooked them for an extra few minutes to get them browner. The recipe makes more biscuits than I expected. They were as light as a feather! They crumbled in my mouth.
Allison – Yes, you made use lard or tallow, or butter. If the butter is salted, reduce the amount of salt in the recipe. Glad you liked them!
I changed my mind about the coconut! I made these several days ago and they were too coconutty to eat with eggs. I wanted to taste the “sop”. They got moist in the container so I decided to make apple shortcake with them. I spooned fermented apples, melted butter, raw honey and kefir on top and sprinkled them with cinnamon. For this recipe the coconut oil was complementary. This will be a regular guest at my house! I’ll halve the recipe and use lard when I want to eat them with eggs or topped with stew. Thanks for the recipe!
Allison – That is so good to know. I’m glad you found out what worked for you. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Allison – I’m glad to hear this! 🙂
I had another creative moment with these biscuits. Because there is only one of me and there were so many biscuits and because I didn’t want to waste any, I came up with this: I made stuffing with them. I added an egg, veggies from my bone broth and some of the reduced broth to crumbled biscuits. I baked it and served it with the meat from the bones. It is now a new favorite thing! I used pastured beef but chicken would be good too. I may never consider making another type of bread. These are so versatile. I love them!
That’s great, Allison! Did you just cube them as is, or toast them for the stuffing? I agree, they are versatile. It is great to have sprouted flour around because you literally can have good bread to eat in 15 minutes.
I crumbled up four biscuits, added a slotted spoonful of onion, carrots, celery and green beans that were cooked in a crockpot with bone broth. I put a couple of ladles of broth in a skillet and heated it to a gravy consistancy and added an egg and the gravy to the mixture. I stirred it well , put it in a small pie pan and baked it until it was brown on top. It was still moist inside and a little dry on the outside like Thanksgiving dressing. I poured more gravy over it with the meat from some oxtail bones. I had a few green beans in the crockpot (that I use non-stop) and those added color to my plate. It was very good, so good that I’m reliving the moment as I type this!
I’m making coconut macaroons tomorrow! I’m concerned that I’m veering too far from GAPS. I needed something solid for awhile. I won’t make more of the biscuits very soon and I had to make the most of them while I have them.
These biscuits are amazing! I made them unsoaked because I didn’t have time for soaking. We ate the camping with homemade sausage gravy and they were a huge hit. I am so happy that they keep for a few days too. I am eating one now with a little honey and it tastes as fresh as it did 3 days ago.
Uh oh, I just started soaking a batch of these biscuits, and happened upon your recipe and noticed that you said not to mix in freshly ground (warm) flour with the coconut oil… which I definitely just did! I made a double batch of them and am going to be bringing them to Thanksgiving tomorrow 🙂 But do you think they’ll still work when I bake them later today? I’m hoping to or else that’s a big waste of flour and coconut oil I just mixed up!
Okay, this is the EXACT recipe I was looking for. Sprouted spelt biscuits to make homemade “sausage biscuits” out of for breakfasts. Can I ask why the vinegar is necessary if it’s not being soaked? Thanks!!
Kelsey — The baking soda and vinegar react together to puff up the biscuits. You’ll risk flatter biscuits if you leave it out. Enjoy!
Oh! That makes sense. I have no problem including the vinegar, I was just curious as I usually don’t see vinegar in these kinds of recipes without a soak period. I am making these today and am excited for them!!
P.S. Just made these and they are SO good! So moist and filling – mine didn’t fluff much, but that doesn’t bother me and actually my husband likes them that way. I used water for the liquid. So easy and quick and so delicious! I will be making these often!
Basic Sprouted Spelt Biscuits–made these & had them tonight. Ever soooo yummy!! Very tasty. Everyone loved them & wanted more. Thank you ever so much for posting & sharing your recipe. I will be sharing the recipe & a few biscuits with my nutritionist Dr. & his wife. God bless you. 🙂
can these be baked at lower temp about 350? im not sure if the coconut oil should be heated at high temp, thanks!
Hi, Aneta:
I’m happy to help! Depending on the kind of coconut oil you’re using, medium to high temperatures are fine. Here is a link to an episode of Ask Wardee, where she talks about the different kinds of coconut oil and their ideal uses: https://traditionalcookingschool.com/food-preparation/which-coconut-oil-should-you-buy-aw072/
—Sonya, TCS Customer Success Team
We only use sprouted spelt flour that we’re lucky enough to be able to buy from our local mill. I was like no way am I going to find a *sprouted* spelt biscuit recipe but here you are! I do have buttermilk powder I use to make healthier home made ranch dressing so I was wondering if I could mix that with water (or soymilk) instead of the vinegar (or in addition to?) Will they not be as fluffy if I use buttermilk instead of vinegar? Thank you!
Hi, Heather,
While powdered buttermilk is not the traditional buttermilk we prefer, as far as results go, powdered buttermilk was favored over vinegar in milk. Some suggested adding some sour cream to vinegar in milk for a thicker texture. I think the powdered buttermilk will give the preferred results over just vinegar/milk.
~Peggy, TCS Customer Success Team