Honey & Jam's yogurt biscuits

There are two types of yogurt available here: imported and local.  Each of those in turn has two subtypes.

The two types of imported yogurt are the fresh stuff flown from the UK, like Activia, Muller and Onken; then there's the UHT yogurt generally brought in from France (?) which lasts for several months and doesn't need to be refrigerated.  I'm officially weirded out.

As for the local yogurts, both are Lebanese-style.  The names are confusingly similar (oh, Semitic languages and their word roots) but the dairy products are quite different.  Laban is thin yogurt, of a drinking consistency.  Labneh, meanwhile, is very thick.  Thicker than Greek, tangier and saltier.  Which means it brings an even more "yogurty" taste to everything you put it in.  I am all for extra flavor!

Once I discovered labneh, I started making yogurt-based recipes here.  Raita is a lovely example, and so are these yogurt biscuits from Honey and Jam.


They're tangy, which I love, and flaky too.  I think I undercooked this batch just a bit, but they really aren't supposed to rise too high.  Serve with butter... or whatever you like.  They're good no matter what.  The dough refrigerates well so you can make 'em ahead of time and just bake them up in the morning.

As for the ingredients, I don't get spelt flour here but I was lucky enough to find some (white) pastry flour which is milled locally.  I'll take it!


The labneh was so thick that I added a dash or two of water to the dough.  But then I had to add flour back in, so next time I'm gonna see if it'll work with just the labneh!  I baked them up in our little toaster oven for minimal fuss.

Yogurt Biscuits

From Honey and Jam, who got 'em from Super Natural Every Day
Makes 12-16 biscuits

1 ¼ cups spelt flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more if needed
1 ½ teaspoons fine-grain sea-salt
1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
½ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1 ⅓ cup greek-style plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 450 with a rack in the middle of the oven. Place an ungreased baking sheet in the oven to preheat as well.

Combine the flours, salt, and baking powder in a food processor. Sprinkle the butter across the top of the dry ingredients and pulse about 20 times, or until the mixture resembles tiny pebbles on a sandy beach. Add the yogurt and pulse a few times, or until the yogurt is just incorporated. Avoid overmixing, it’s fine if there are a few dry patches. Gather the dough into a ball and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead five times and press into an inch thick square. Cut in half and stack one on the other. Repeat two more times - flattening and stacking, then cutting. Add more all purpose flour to prevent sticking when needed. Press or roll out the dough into a 3/4 thick rectangle, but no thicker; if the dough is too tall, the biscuits will tilt and tip over while baking. Cut the dough into twelve equal biscuits.
Transfer the biscuits to the preheated baking sheet leaving 1/2 inch between each biscuit. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the bottoms are deeply golden and the biscuits are cooked through.