Chestnut Pretzel Biscuits
Our friend Kate Ray shares this Chestnut Pretzel Biscuit recipe. We encourage you to sign up for her substack for many more amazing recipes — most are vegan and many focus on Hudson Valley and Northeast regional ingredients.
Kate Says:
I recently bought some Lost Bread Company pretzel shortbreads which were delicious and got me thinking about pretzels and biscuits. What I ended up making is pretty different from theirs (which are pretzeled — as in cooked in lye — whereas my cookies contain ground up pretzels), but are just as good for a morning or afternoon snack with tea. These biscuits cookies are crunchy and have the dark toasty notes of the pretzels you use, with a distinct but not overwhelming nutty taste from the chestnut flour.
This is a simple recipe — you grind up the pretzels in the food processor, which adds an element of texture the way breadcrumbs do in a digestive biscuit, then pulse in the other dry ingredients and combine with the whisked wet ingredients. You could skip chilling in the fridge if you want — just bake the cookies as a whole unit once you press the dough into the sheet tray and cut after baking. They won’t have the same crunchy edges, but will still be good.
Ingredients
Makes 12 large-ish cookies, or 24 small ones
100 grams old fashioned hard pretzels. I used thickly cut “extra dark” hard pretzels in my testing, but I think any hard pretzels would work.
80 grams fine chestnut flour
80 grams arrowroot, tapioca, or corn starch
80 grams brown sugar
80 grams white sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
140 grams neutral oil
100 grams soy milk
1 teaspoon sea salt
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling
Method
Add the pretzels to a food processor and pulse until they’re broken up into coarse crumbs, but not too finely ground. Add the chestnut flour, rye flour, starch, brown sugar, white sugar, and baking powder and pulse to combine.
In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, soy milk and salt until mixture is well-combined and emulsified.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until there are no dry streaks.
Spread the mixture out on a parchment-lined quarter sheet tray. Chill for an hour or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375°F.
Remove the dough by running a butter knife around the edges and inverting onto a cutting board. Cut into 12 equal pieces and lay on a parchment-lined half sheet tray.
Sprinkle demerara sugar on top of the cookies.
Bake for 20 minutes, until the edges are just getting browned.
Let cool before serving. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks, or freeze for longer storage.