Do you absolutely love digestive biscuits but can’t seem to find any ? Looking to make the perfect cheesecake base but don’t have digestives ? No worries, we’ve got you covered ! With this handy dandy substitute list you’ll always have a backup plan.
Best digestive biscuits substitutes
The best substitutes for digestive biscuits are graham crackers, ginger nuts or biscuits, hob nobs, oreos, pie crust, shortbread, or just any biscuits mixed with ground nuts.
Whichever you use is up to you, and what your recipe calls for. You can use a mix of all of these, if you want to get a really different texture. Nearly all of these work well with butter, so they can be used as a cheesecake base.
Or, you can make your own digestive biscuits, from scratch. You’ll find the recipe near the end, after talking about each substitute.
Now let’s see a little about each of these substitutes, and how to use them.
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Graham crackers
Graham crackers are one of those food types that you either love or hate. The ‘problem’ lies in the nutty taste. It’s much stronger than regular whole-wheat flour, some some folks just don’t like that.
In general these crackers are crisper, and thinner than regular digestive biscuits. They’re somewhat sweet, so you may have to add a little sugar or syrup to the base if you’re making something sweet.
Ginger nuts or biscuits
Ginger nuts or biscuits are a type of shortbread cookie with a definite ginger flavor. If you’re not a fan of ginger then skip over this one because they’re very strong tasting.
They’re tougher than digestive biscuits, so you’ll need to really grind them down and them mix them.
Hobnobs
Made of oats, hobnobs may not be your first choice but if you love oatmeal they may work well for you. Again, crispier and drier than digestives, but they should do the trick.
Oreos
Now, Oreos are a favorite for many people and you can find them in cocoa and vanilla ! True, these will work best for a vanilla, chocolate, caramel, or cream kind of cheesecake but you can add them to a fruity dish as well.
You may or may not have to scrape the stuffing, depending on how soft and moist you want them to be. If you keep the stuffing and grind them up you won’t really need to use butter to bind everything.
However you will have to ‘set’ the crust in the oven for 5-10 minutes so the stuffing will melt and meld everything together.
Pie crust
If you’d rather something more similar to the base made with digestives, try using pre-baked pie crust. whether you make it yourself or buy it pre-made if up to you.
You’ll have to bake the crust by itself, like you would for a pie shell. Then you can add the filling and leave as-is, or you ca break the shell and crumble it like you would with digestives.
Shortbread
Shortbread is just sugar, flour, and butter. It’s delicious and addictive and may be the best crumbly crust or base you’ve ever had. It’s going to soften a little when you put the cheesecake filling, but it should hold its own in the end.
We recommend using this one for no-bake cheesecakes.
Biscuits mixed with ground nuts
If you want to get some really interesting taste and texture in there, try mixing ground biscuits (any) with ground nuts(any). Bind everything with melted butter, and you’ll have a very delicious base for your cheesecake.
It also works great as a topping or top layer for a dessert.
Fiber-rich foods to take on the go
If the reason you’re eating digestives is to help your stomach digest foods, then you need a different set of substitutes. High fiber foods are what you’re looking for.
Fiber is something that is required for you to digest food to use for energy. There will be times that those digestive biscuits are out of stock and you can’t get them.
There are a plethora of substitutes that perform the same function but may not be biscuits. The biscuits may be more expensive than some of the alternatives. So this will give you options that are a lot more cost-efficient to get that fiber in your system every day.
Oats
Oats are one of the best sources of fiber and protein for anyone’s diet. You can get adjust your portion sizes accordingly and make it work for any diet.
You can easily take some plastic cases, add in milk, cinnamon sugar, and some fruit to give you a meal that is actually filling. You can take this to just about anywhere, and it won’t cost you that much to eat it consistently.
It won’t give you the crunch of eating crackers, but it also delicious, depending on what you want to put in it. It’s one of the best options for building protein and getting in other nutrients in as well.
Whole-grain bread
Bread is something that you can make many different things with. You can fry chunks of it in the pan and create croutons to put them with any kind of salad you like.
Whole grain bread has a lot of fiber, which makes it perfect to use in sandwiches. It can be a real peanut butter and jelly sandwich, ham, cheese sandwich, or whatever else your creative desires. Multigrain is also a much better alternative if you want to make French toast.
Almonds
Almonds are a fiber-rich snack with a lot of variety in terms of how you can eat them. You can set them on top of many baked goods that will make it easier for you to get them into your diet.
If you want to put them in muffins or top them on top of your whole wheat bread, that can work out to be a great fiber-rich meal. Almonds are great to eat on their own when you want to eat something but don’t want to go through the trouble of making an entire meal.
On top of that, they have some of the highest fiber ratios that you can get in your diet.
Read Also:What Does Cheesecake Taste Like ?
The story of digestive biscuits
Digestive biscuits do exactly what they sound like. In Scotland, the need for digestion of necessity to get more fiber into their diets was a very real concern. As a result of that, the digestive biscuits were first created back in 1892.
The convenience of having a snack that allows you to digest food is really good for the average person. They also may not get the fiber out of what they are currently eating.
There may be some problems with the current digestive biscuits that you are eating. To be more specific, there are often disclaimers on the packaging that despite being named ‘digestives’, these biscuits do not aid digestion.
Making the biscuit yourself allows you to insert whatever you want into them and create the best experience.
Can you make them without sugar?
Almost every snack has some kind of sugar flavoring that is used for food. Even sauces intended for you to eat meat have a noticeable amount of sugar for the food.
Besides the insulting spikes, sugar can be pretty low in quality, compared to other sweeteners. It is cheap, but there are substitutes and other sweeteners that will create a higher quality product.
It might be more expensive to make these depending on where you live, but you will be left with a higher quality product in the end.
To make digestive biscuits yourself:
Get oats and select the blitz option a few times in the food processor. Add buckwheat flour until it has overtaken most of the oats in the mixture. You can also add the same amount of coconut flour to the mix to not have gluten in your digestive biscuits, usually 70 to 90 grams.
Add a teaspoon of baking powder to create a baking agent for your biscuits. A pinch of salt so that it doesn’t taste too sweet and creates a nice balance.
Splenda or any other sweetener of your choice will do just fine. And then add big spoonful of coconut oil for your fat (roughly 80 grams). Mix it and let it stay in the fridge so that the oil is solid and rigid.
Mix in 80mls of coconut milk and mix, add in slowly, and adjust accordingly. After this, you will be able to set up your biscuits to bake in the oven.
Spray some oil or butter on a nonstick sheet and bake in the oven at 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
You can pull them out earlier if you want them to be soft, but they taste really good crispy.
And that’s it, you’re done ! You can now make your own digestive biscuits, and have some substitutes if you ever need any.
Conclusion
I hope you found out what works the best as a substitute for digestive biscuits in a cheesecake or as a healthy snack depending on why you need an alternative for the biscuits.
