Whole Wheat Biscuits

I like biscuits, now I'm not from the South, (although according to my Canadian boy the US as a whole is the South) but I've spent some time in both North & South Carolina so I'd like to say I know what good biscuits are. That being said I've never had much luck making my own. I recently had a serious craving for biscuits but knowing that that much dough is never a good idea especially when I've been trying to use more whole grains at home, I thought I could somewhat keep in line with my whole grains goal by using whole wheat flour. So I did a web search for whole wheat biscuits and happened upon the recipe over at RecipeZaar. RecipeZaar is a resource my friend Suz over at You Can't Eat What swears upon, but I just don't use that often. After my winning banana cupcakes and this recipe I've decided I should. Not only do the recipes seem good, but they have this amazing feature that lets you change the amount of servings you want for a particular recipe and their handy calculator then alters the ingredient amounts to what you need, no more futzing around trying to figure out how to cut a recipe down by a 1/3. It's pretty brilliant with a recipe like this where it makes 12 biscuits but the boy and I so don't need 12 biscuits kicking around the house.


Whole Wheat Biscuits
from recipezaar.com

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp margarine or butter (we had I Can't Believe It's Not Butter in the fridge so I used that)
1 cup skim milk

1. Combine flours, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in margarine with a pastry blender or 2 knives. Add milk, mix quickly.
2. Turn out onto a floured board. Knead 6 to 8 times. Roll 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 12, 2 inch round biscuits or into wedges or squares.
3. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake in a 425°F oven 12 to 15 minutes until lightly browned.

A concern with using whole wheat flour was that you wouldn't get light a fluffy biscuits, well for me making biscuits with any flour that is a concern. You can work biscuit dough too much or you end up with hockey pucks, which I have many times before. It's funny to me that using a flour that many people had problems getting to rise allowed me to finally get a light and fluffy biscuit. I'd like to think it's because my baking skills have improved that much since my last biscuit attempt over a year ago. These were delicious and at only 95 calories a serving, something I'd be happy to make the next time a biscuit craving hits. My one complaint was that in using the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter my biscuits didn't get golden brown, I may try using real butter next time to see if it makes a difference. Enjoy!