Healthy Gran Cereale Biscuits

Soft, chewy, delicious - packed with healthy ingredients and that little bit of sugar which makes them a real treat. Gran Cereale biscuits are a type of breakfast biscuit from Italy. My husband loved them when he was a child and the taste brings up fond memories of summers spent in Italy.

The Italian's have an interesting relationship with breakfast. While the rest of the world is getting more and more inventive with smashed avocado and ways to prepare eggs, in Italy, it's a much simpler - and sweeter - affair. Always coffee, of course, but also biscuits! Yes, you read that correctly. This just tells me that they know how to live la dolce vita every moment of the day. 

I don't want to pretend that these biscuits are super healthy, but on top of being sweet, these Gran Cereale biscuits are packed with healthy ingredients like oats, wholemeal flour, nuts and seeds. They are satisfying to eat and easily adapted. And they are vegan too.

Tips and tricks

The dough is quite crumbly. Add enough water so that it comes together and knead it for a while to get a soft, relatively pliable dough. 

In order to get the nice chewy texture, the biscuits need a good height and size. Don't roll them out too thinly. Aim for a dough thickness of about 4-5mm. For the biscuits pictured above, I used a 6.5cm round cookie cutter.

The tricky part is to get the cooking time just right. The already golden brown colour of the dough makes it hard to tell when they are done. Start with 15 minutes at 160ºC, test with your fingertip. If they are still very soft in the middle, bake 5 more minutes and test again. Depending on the oven I was baking them in, it took anywhere between 15-25 minutes to get a nice even golden brown colour on the biscuits.

Let them cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found years ago on Valentina Solfrini's Hortus Cuisine Blog, which unfortunately is no longer online. 

Healthy Gran Cereale Biscuits

makes 20-22 large biscuits

150 g rolled oats 

120 g wholewheat flour
25 g LSA (ground linseed, sunflower seed and almonds) or ground linseed

25 g ground hemp seeds

50 g ground almonds or nuts

50g brown sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 pinch of salt

80 g vegetable oils (I used 60 g coconut oil, 20 g mild olive oil)

3 heaping tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

water

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. You will need two baking trays lined with baking paper.

Process oats until they turn into a flour. Lightly heat coconut oil and honey to achieve a runny consistency.

Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium size bowl. Mix all wet ingredients except water together in a separate bowl. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mix and use your hands to bring it together. 

Add just enough water to bring the dough together. Start with 1 tablespoon, add small amounts until it's just enough. If you added too much and the dough has become too soft, simply add a little bit more flour.

Turn the dough out on a clean surface and knead for a few minutes to bring the dough together. Shape into a ball, cover with cling film and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Take the dough out of the fridge. Cut in half and cover one half with cling film. 

Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 5mm thickness. Cut out the biscuits and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Scrape the dough together, knead into a ball, roll out and cut out biscuits until there is no more dough left. Repeat with the second half.

 

Bake for 8 minutes at 160ºC. Turn the baking trays and bake another 8 minutes. Test the centre with your fingertip. If it is still very soft, bake for another 5 minutes, test again. Repeat until they have an even golden brown colour, but are still slightly soft in the middle.

Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Variations

• Hazelnut: Try ground hazelnuts instead of almonds
• Choc and Coco: Add 2-3 tablespoons of dark chocolate chips and 50g shredded coconut instead of the seeds
• Different types of wholemeal flours: Replace 20g of the wholewheat flour with other whole flours such as rye or spelt