Homemade Digestive Biscuits

There's a particular kind of afternoon that wants a biscuit. Grey light at the window, the heating just clicked on, a cup of tea cooling next to you on the side. Shop-bought will do at a push. But once you've made digestives at home, you stop reaching for the packet quite so readily.

This is a biscuit of grain and butter and not much else. Wholemeal flour, oatmeal, a bit of muscovado for the toffee note, milk to bring it together. No eggs, no fuss. The dough comes together in ten minutes and rests in the fridge while you put the kettle on. By the time you've drunk your tea and read a chapter of something, they're ready to roll.

What I love about a homemade digestive is the texture. Properly nubbly, slightly sandy in the way only oatmeal can be, with a deep nutty flavour that the supermarket version only hints at. They're firm enough to hold up to a serious dunk in tea, sturdy enough for a wedge of strong cheddar and a slice of apple, and good enough on their own that you'll find yourself eating them straight from the tin while pretending you weren't.

I wrote it down in the notebook last week: oats, butter, kettle on, rain. That was the whole afternoon, and there are few better ways to spend one.