My husband loves biscuits. In the pre-gluten free days, one of his favorite Saturday morning breakfasts was a sausage and cheese biscuit. For years we used Gluten Free Sandwich Bread for our breakfast sandwiches, but a recent trip to Whole Foods inspired me to try my hand at biscuits. I have to say, these taste just like the biscuits my Mom makes.
If you’re new to baking, drop biscuits are a great place to start. You just mix them up, drop them on a pan, and bake them. (You also get to put your hands into the dough, which is a lot of fun.) I usually bake these on a weekend morning, and then heat up the leftovers in the microwave during the week. We also had them for dinner this week, and I’ll write a post on that soon.
Instructions
Yield: 1 dozen
- 2 c. of my Gluten Free All Purpose Flour mix
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. xanthum gum
- 6 Tbsp. butter, shortening, or margarine
- 1 c. buttermilk
- 1 egg, beaten
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl thoroughly combine the flour mix, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and xanthum gum. Cut the butter, margarine, or shortening into the flour (see below for further instructions). Add the buttermilk and beaten egg to the flour and stir until the dry and liquid ingredients are combined. Using a spoon, drop the dough onto a greased pan to make 12 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.
(Vegan/Casein Free Subsitution: Replace the buttermilk with 1 Tbsp. cider vinegar plus enough soymilk to equal one cup. Use vegetable shortening rather than butter.)
Cooking Lesson: Cutting in the fat
To cut the fat into the flour first measure out 6 Tbsp of butter and break it into small pieces (with a knife or your fingers) . Drop the pieces into the flour mix and, using your hands, toss the pieces of butter in the flour so that they are all coated.
Using a pinching motion (like you’re playing with a sock puppet), pick up some of the flour and butter in your hand and pinch the pieces of butter into smaller pieces. Make sure each of these pieces gets coated with flour when it falls back into the bowl. Your goal is to have lots of little flour-coated pieced of butter in your dough. These pieces of butter will melt when the bisuits are baked and make it fluffy and light. Be careful not to rub the butter into the flour as you pinch it – you’re just breaking the butter into smaller pieces and THEN coating them with flour. This is what it should look like when you’re done.
We love these. Even more than the light and fluffy ones. I may have added more shortning than required… I was measuring it using a 1/2 tablespoon measure. Also, the light and fluffy ones were my very first gluten free baking experience, so I may like them better if I try them again, hehe. I don’t have any baking sheets big enough to hold 12 biscuits (because in my first apartment, we had a -tiny- oven), so I do 6 at a time… and the first 6 are always gone by the time the second 6 are out 🙂
I love your blog. I have something of a problem though. Or… a few problems. Heh… Along with having to avoid gluten, I also have to give up egg, dairy, and soy.
Naturally, that means no buttermilk for me. 🙁 I was just getting into baking when I got diagnosed, so I’m not entirely too experienced which is why I’m asking you the following question. 😀 Is there anything I can substitute for the buttermilk in the recipes that call for it? Everywhere I look there are so many good looking recipes that I’d love to try, but most of them call for buttermilk, so you can see my problem. xD I await an answer of any kind! Thanks for your time.
Hi Caitlin, What are you using for a milk substitute? Usually you can make your own “buttermilk” from your milk substitute by putting 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice or vinegar into a 1 cup measure and then filling the cup the remainder of the way with your “milk”. The result may not be quite as thick, but I’ve never had any problems with the recipes turning out. And, by the way, if you’re looking for other non-dairy subs like sour cream try googling “vegan sour cream” and you should get a lot of good non-dairy recipes.
Thanks a lot! We’re currently using rice “milk” since our brand of almond milk has some kind of soy in it… D’oh. Thanks again for the help, I can’t wait to try it. 😀
Hi Mary Frances:
Thank you for giving me some hope! I am considered a good cook (for 40 years!) and since my daughter has been on a gluten-free diet, I have dried many recipes from GF cookbooks – they have ALL been flops. I was feeling really discouraged and found your website this morning. These biscuits came out good – but they never really browned (Look sort of anemic). Do you really bake them at 350? I have an oven thermometer, so I know my oven was 350, but I baked them 20 minutes and they are still pale. Any suggestions? Thanks again for giving me some hope!
@Debra: I guess it might not be 350 since I don’t have an oven thermometer, but my biscuits do get brown. I even double-checked with my husband (who doesn’t cook at all!) and he thinks they brown nicely. However, they may not get as brown as wheat biscuits, so if that’s what you’re going for they probably do look a bit anemic.
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I Love these biscuits! For the first time in a long time I was able to have those biscuts that taste just like the yummy resturant kind! I add bacon, red pepper, chives, garlic and soy cheese to mine for a hearty breakfast on the go! Thank you so much for this recipe! I can’t wait to try your bread next!
I would love to find a coconut flour yeast bread recipe. Mainly because for the low carb aspect. Can anyone help me with that?
Thanks.
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Hi – just tried these and they haven’t even come out of the oven yet, but I wanted to mention that I didn’t need 1 c of the milk – even 3/4 c gave me too liquid-y of a batter, so I had to add a bit more flour in, is this normal? The wheat biscuits I’ve always made don’t make a batter like that –
Thanks for the recipe!
Is it cheaper to make your own flour mixes or to buy the ones like Bobs Red Mill all purpose mix? I’m newly diagnosed and trying to make a go at this without a great expense. Does BRM work as good as your own mixes? Thanks for the website; it gives me hope!
hey MF! what a blessing you are to have a website now so GF cooking is possible! we are living in Indonesia now, serving as missionaries, and the GF recipes are life savers! thank you so much! much love, lesley(Baker) Sewell