A happy accident a few weeks ago led to yet another change in my gluten free drop biscuits recipe. I ran out of soy flour and added an additional 1/2 c. of cornstarch to make up for the shortfall. The result. . . fluffy, tender biscuits that I would put up against anyone’s gluten filled biscuit.
These biscuits freeze really well too. I usually make a batch on Saturday morning, cook 6 for our breakfast and then freeze the remaining 10 biscuits in two pans. These pans eventually find their way into our oven during the week. Just bake for 30 minutes while you get dressed, and breakfast is done.
If drop biscuits are not quite your thing, then you need to try my recipe for cut-out biscuits. It’s included in my e-book, The Gluten Free Survival Guide.
Instructions
Yield: 16 large biscuits
- 1 1/2 c. brown rice flour
- 2 c. corn starch*
- 1/2 c. soy flour or sorghum flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. xanthan gum
- 1 stick of butter* (chilled in the freezer)
- 1 1/4 c. soy milk*
- 1 1/4 c. water
- 1 Tbsp. cider vinegar*
- 1 egg, beaten (or the equivalent amount of your favorite egg replacement)
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl thoroughly combine the flours, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and xanthan gum.
- Grate the butter into the flour using the small holed side of a box grater. Mix the butter into the flour so that there are no large balls of grated butter.
- Add the soy milk, water, vinegar and beaten egg to the flour and stir until the dry and liquid ingredients are combined.
- Using a large spoon, drop the dough onto a greased pan to make 16 biscuits. Cook at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Cook’s Notes:
- If you’re not vegan or dairy free, feel free to use 1 c. buttermilk in place of the soy milk and vinegar. If you’re allergic to soy, try using your usual milk substitute and keep the vinegar in the recipe.
- You may substitute potato starch or tapioca flour for the cornstarch.
- 1 stick of butter = 8 Tbsp. = 1/2 c. = 1/4 lb. = 115 grams
- Earth Balance Buttery Sticks should work if you need this to be casein free. I just checked their website and the sticks are gluten and dairy free.
- Thanks to Kate at Gluten Free Gobsmacked for the tip on grating the butter. It was a lot of fun and decreased my prep time by quite a bit.
I tried these after reading all the comments. I used the recipe exactly save for the following exceptions.
for the liquid I used only 1 cup milk and 1 cup water.
I switched the brown rice flour for white rice flour.
They turned out light and fluffy and were a huge success for the GF member of the family. The rest of us honestly couldn’t tell the difference between these and regular biscuits. Loved them. I do think that if i added the extra liquid they might not have been so “doughlike”
For those who like to experiment with recipes. I have started using the Light and Fluffy Biscuit recipe as a general baking mix for muffins and the likes. I also use oil in place of butter. By adjusting the liquids as needed, I make great muffins. The recipe accepts additional sugar, added molasses, applesauce, raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, spices etc to make nice variety of “quick” breads. So thanks for the recipe.
Wow! As said these were actually light & fluffy! I’m so impressed! Yummy with butter and honey fresh from the oven. I was going to make tuna melts with these but have already eaten so many with butter & honey, I’m not sure I have room. I know I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow! Probably breakfast too! Thanks for the recipe, again I can’t believe how light and fluffy they are:) Thanks for sharing!
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I was diagnosed with celiac over 4 months ago. I have not found a bread product that I could stand to eat. I’m a very picky eater. I tried your biscuits and THEY ARE GREAT!!!!!!! Thank you very much. I ate the whole batch in 2 days.
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Light and Fluffy meets Nourishing Traditions. These biscuits rock! Thanks for the great recipe! I’ve just started soaking my grains, as recommended in Sally Fallon’s cookbook, Nourishing Traditions. I wanted to try to make gluten free biscuits, and she doesn’t give any concrete suggestions for gluten free changes to recipes. I followed the light and fluffy recipe, but soaked the grains overnight, using 1 1/4 cups whole milk yogurt for half the liquid the first time, and 2.5 cups whole milk + 4 Tbsp whey for all the liquid the second time. In the morning, I added the beaten egg, the butter (melted and decreased to 6 Tbsp), followed by the leavening, salt, and xanthan gum, (mixed together first). Stirred, baked, and Voila! Yumilicious!
The first time, I used 1.5 cups amaranth flour, 2 cups arrowroot flour, and 1/2 cup sorghum flour, and Earth Balance buttery sticks. The second time I used millet flour, arrowroot flour, sorghum flour, and unsalted butter. They were great both times! You can use whatever milk substitute you want, you just need to add an acid (e.g., whey, vinegar, lemon juice) for the overnight soak at 1 Tbsp/cup liquid if you’re soaking.
good golly these are delicious. I have tried to make gf biscuits previously with unpromising results…this went straight into my recipe folder after my first bite, you know that folder where only the tried, true and trusted winners go. thanks!
I’m so happy I have tears in my eyes! They are wonderful. Now to find a great pizza crust and try your bread recipe. I’m so excited, I’m going to make these for everyone I know with celiacs and watch them tear up too : ) THANKS
Hi, I haven’t tried these but will soon. I wondered if you thought these would work for monkey bread. I use the small 4pk can of biscuits usually for monkey bread, but wondered if this gf biscuit recipe would work as well. Thanks for all of the great GF recipes, Im new to gf and your website is a lifesaver. Lisa
Hi ,
I tried these biscuits.They are amazing ,I have just recently been diagnosed with a gluten intolerance at the age 44.I am just getting into baking my own food.I find that store bought ,is not always that fresh and it is also more expensive . I found the recipe easy to follow and they turned out perfectly .The only thing I substituted was the cornstarch,I used potato starch. These biscuits were light fluffy and delicious. I wonder how many calories or fat content they have .
I used this recipe to make a traditional South African food called rusks which I hadn’t eaten for years. I changed the recipe by using less starch and a bit of sugar. Once they are baked you break them into pieces and dry them in a low oven overnight. It’s probably an acquired experience, but you end up with really crunchy, dry plain “cookies” that keep for months if stored in a tin. Then when you are feeling lazy or in a rush, you grab two for breakfast and dunk them in (rooibos) tea to soften. Delicious. Thank you so much for sharing these recipes.
@Tezhe: Thanks for sharing! I’ve never heard about rusks, but it sounds similar to a scone, except for the drying part. I may try it when I go back to work and will be needing some quick breakfasts. How much sugar did you add?
Hello,
I’m visiting you for the first time and I’d like to print this recipe. How do I do it without copying ALL of the pages?
@Jan: there’s not a great way to do that at this point. I usually copy and paste the ingredients and cooking directions into Notepad and then print when I want to have a recipe printed. (I guess that I’m spoiled by having my computer 6 feet away from my prep area.) I’ll look again and see if there is any way that I can get the blog software to make printable pages without me having to go back and edit every single post – that has been what’s kept me from doing it before.
I am planning to make these biscuits this weekend. You mentioned that you freeze some of the biscuits for later use. Do you freeze them in dough form and then bake them frozen? I’d like to give that a try. Thanks!
@Renee:
I do freeze them in dough form. I usually go ahead and put the biscuits into the pan that I will eventually bake them in, wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap several times, and then put in the freezer. When I do cook them, I take the pan straight from the freezer and into a hot oven.
Jan:
I have that problem too, I try to print a recipe and it prints 63 pages 😛 I’m no computer expert (I could afford the gf flours much better if I were), but I highlight the recipe I want, for some reason if I do it from the bottom up instead of top down, it only highlights the recipe and not the rest of the text on the page, click edit, then copy, then I paste it to a blank Word or Works document, then print. I’m sure other people can do this in less steps, but I hadn’t seen any responses, so I thought I’d share.
Jan and Tobi:
All you need to do to print the recipe is highlight the text you want to print, then click File > Print > Selection > Print. This will allow you to print only what you’ve selected. Good Luck!
Thank you for sharing the G/F Biscuit Recipe. I am looking forward to trying it. For milk I would be using Almond Milk. I also have to stay away from fermented foods because of candidiasis. Therefore i need a substitute for the vinegar. What would you suggest? should I try Vitamin C crystals?
Joan Bundt
It was great to print out the recipe, but please disconnect the commentary from the recipe, so that we don’t have to print out 71 commentaries.
Thanks!
It was good to print out the recipe for the Really Good Sandwich Bread. It would be helpful however, if the commentaries could be separated from the recipe, to avoid print out all of the commentaries received.
Thanks.
Super delicious recipe!!!! I love them and so do my kiddos! Even better with homemade jam….YUMMY!!
After reading all the great comments that I decided to give a try.
I am new to Gluten- free/casein -free baking and so far I do not have a good success in baking doughy stuff. I made great cookies and pancakes from scratch though. Anyways, mine tuned out to be battery.
I substituted brown rice flour with rice flour, corn starch with tapioca flour, soy flour with almond meal. Since it was battery I added more tapioca flour. The dough was still runny that it spread on the pan and when I took them out from oven they flattened. So I put the remaining dough in the muffin pan hoping that they will have some thickness and gave extra 5 minutes to make sure they are fully baked. But they become like Yorkshire puddings! They also flattened when I took them out of oven.
I still had remaining dough so I decided to experiment. I put more flour and they stayed in shape but they still kind of flattened and bottoms were golden crispy but inside was chewy. I guess I can’t fix dough once it went wrong.
Where did it go wrong? may be I should have packed flours when measuring? Because mine tasted a little too salty.
Did I stir too much after putting liquid?
My friend said if you want your biscuit to be short, use less liquid.
May be too much liquid in the recipe?….but so many didn’t have problem with that.
Any suggestions?
If you want these biscuits to come out failproof follow the recipe , do not substitute (especially if your not familiar with do it ) I havn’t ever had a problem with these biscuits .These are faiproof ……and amazing .Take your time buy the exact ingredients and prepare .You will never be disappointed ,my 12 year old daughter also makes these ,I always tell her to messure everything out first and put out your bowls and once your in order begin . The better organised you are the better you are in making sure you have done everything correctly .
I hope everyone tries these biscuits they are simply the absolute best .
I tried this recipe and it was too watery. It did not make biscuits. I ended up having to add more flour to fix the problem and it did not help. They came out more like pancakes. Next time I will omit the water. They were the right consistancy until I added the water. They tasted like biscuits, but were flat. I am wondering if the water was supposed to be tablespoons and not cups.
I tried these biscuits this morning. I have another biscuit recipe that I have been modifying and re-modifying to make enough biscuits to feed my family while also being moist, fluffy, and not uber crumbly. I had the same problem with them originally flattening out to pancakes. This recipe did the same thing. I will probably try the recipe again, packing the flour when I measure it and possibly reducing the liquid. I see someone in KS had the same issue and mentioned altitude as a possibility…I wonder if it does have something to do with altitude. Here the altitude is 1200 ft, Kansas City is 800 ft, and Birmingham is 780 ft.
Problems,
I do not understand why some people have a problem with this recipe If you follow the the directions …..do everything in the exact order …remember to add the xantham gum and mix well .I found that as I was mixing it all together it became thick ….Follow it to the letter ,this is the easiest no fail tea biscuit recipe ,my 12 year old daughter makes them .They are light and fluffy and beautiful . I feel so bad that some are missing out on this lovely recipe .Follow the instructions ,do it exactly as you are reading it and do not defer in any way ,these will come out perfect every time .I promise you .!!!!!!! Butter and peanut butter on top after they come out of the oven ,is the absolute best . These are simply unbelievable ,truly !!!!!!!!!
I live at 6300 feet and have been able to make this recipe just fine. I do tend to bake them a bit longer though, which is normal for high altitude. Couple tips I have found: I make the biscuits fairly small, about two heaping tablespoons worth of dough for each biscuit is about all I use. I make sure my butter stays very cold. On the liquids, I add them in slowly, only adding in as much as I need to make the dough bind together, no more. There are times depending on the flours I use that I do not need all the liquids called for. I have made these with eggs and with egg substitute, both have turned out. I have used cow milk, rice milk, and almond milk as well. I still think the two biggest keys is keeping your fats cold (butter), and adding the liquid only until you get a nice sticky batter that holds together that you can transfer over to a baking sheet.
My husband is eating a gluten-free diet now. I made these biscuits with what I had on hand, which meant that I substituted white rice flour for brown rice flour, arrowroot powder for xantham gum, and reconstituted dry milk for the soy milk.
The biscuits didn’t drop — too runny. But I poured the batter into a greased oblong cake pan, and baked until golden brown. I cut the biscuits into 24 pieces, and they were fantastic…a bit over-fluffy, making them a little hard to butter, but very similar to regular white flour biscuits, my husband’s favorite before-celiac food! Excellent flavor and near-perfect texture! The substitutions gave me an idea: the same substitutions with a cup of added sugar and tsp. vanilla or other flavoring would probably make a great cake. Will try soon.
The arrowroot powder was probably the problem. It’s amazing how much a little xanthan gum can tighten up the dough.
These biscuits are awesome! I have missed sausage biscuits big time. This is the third recipe for biscuits I have tried and I am not looking anymore. I used muffin pans to bake them in (my cookie sheet was in the freezer with blueberries on it) and I am eager to try them with cheddar cheese next time. I am off to figure out how to bake your sandwich bread in my bread machine. It doesn’t have an 80 minute bake period. Thank you for this great recipe and the southern cornbread! It was yummy also.
Thanks for the great recipe! I may have missed it when I read all of the comments, but how would you say is the best way to store them? Refrigerator? Pantry? Frozen? My son and I had them with our dinner tonight and, you can quote him, “Yum! This bread is super good!”
This was my first time making gluten-free food, and these biscuits were really great. I used a teaspoon in each hand to give them a little more shape on my baking pan. No one in my family knew they were gluten-free until I told them. I have 4 grandkids in the house – and they love these for breakfast before school.
I love to store them in the freezer and take them out as I need them .I would pre slice them put a piece of wax paper between and put them in a large freezer bag. Sometimes ,I take one out that is frozen and put cheese and ham b/w for my daughters lunch.It thaws in her lunch bag .
I don’t have any of the Earth Balance stick butter, but I do have coconut oil. Can it be used instead?
I have tried several biscuit recipes and this by far comes the closest to real biscuits. I put the rice flour in the food processor for 1 minute with a steel blade. This helps to give you a super fine rice flour. I do have to say that the batter was very thin, so I added a 1/4 more of super fine rice flour. May be it was runny because I processed the flour, I don’t know. I used shortening and rice milk as my son is dairy-free also. They were sure great! Ate them for dinner with Pumpkin Stew. Polished another one off after dinner with honey on it! YUMMY!!! 🙂
I use oil, don’t have coconut so don’t know about it. I add it to liquids of course and minimally mix wet into dry. Not quite as light but still very good. This recipe is so good and flexible, especially for a GF recipe, that I now use it as basic biscuit and muffin mix. I multiply the recipe for large batch of dry mix and store in fridge. I calculated out how much liquid ingredients per cup of mix so I can quickly make what ever amount I want. I make it into muffins by adding more liquid, some applesauce, spices, nuts, raisins etc. My husband’s favorite is the dried cherry and chocolate chip ones.
Did you mean both 1 1/4 c. of milk AND water? Mine came out as soup and aren’t very good.
OMG, I made this biscuit recipe yesterday and after trying several others over the last year this was the closet to my moms I’ve gotten. I beat the egg and mixed all the other liquids together first. From previous experience I did not put in all the liquids at once and I am so glad I didn’t because I would have had pancake batter. I measured what liquid I had remaining and it was 1/2 cup. So I made a note on my reciept next time to only use 1 cup each of water and milk. Another thing, I had already added an additional 1/4 of Montina to add more fiber. I usually replace the same amount of flour for the Montina but forgot to so just added it. Next time I will use my Ghee Coconut fat. It should work just fine.
All baked items that don’t have any preservatives in them like scratch cakes and breads from before GF days and especially today with the GF items, need to be refrigerated if you are going to use them in a few days or freeze them like another post said previously. With my breads I always slice them and put wax paper between the slices and freeze what I don’t think I will eat that week and refrigerate the other. With desserts you can slice a cake or pie and freeze in individual bags or freeze them on a cookie sheet and them either vaccumn seal them or put all the frozen slices in one bag and put back in the freezer. By freezing them on a cookie sheet and then putting them in a bag together they won’t be stuck together and you can just take out one piece at a time as you want to. Hope this helps.
The only replacement for xanthan gum that I know of is guar gum. And it’s use is only in teaspoons portions not cups. Arrowroot, tapioca starch and potato starch are used the same and replaceable for each other. Tapioca starch and tapioca flour are one in the same BUT potato starch are NOT the same as potato flour. Potato flour is for thickening not as a starch replacement in GF baking.
Mary Frances, after reading that several of us have at the “too much liquid” problem, could it be the humidity? Hard to believe that little humidity we have in the fall in north Texas would warrant the 1/2 cup too much liquid that I had yesterday. I have made scratch biscuits all my adult life, like my mother taught me and if I’d used all 2 1/2 of milk & water I would have had pancake batter. As it was it was very thin and not dry at all when I stopped adding liquid. And as I mentioned before I had already added 1/4 c of pure Montina. Thanks for the AWSOME biscuit recipe. Do you think these would press out and cut as well as the drop method?
i made your biscuits today. did a few things different.
i used Bob Red Mill all purpose flour along with the rest
of what you did. i made mine in the food processor. i put
all the dry ingredients in a processed for a little while.
then i sliced and dropped in the frozen butter. it had a
regular biscuit texture, and i formed them into biscuits,
i put then in a large muffin tins, i had two. then i had
one left over and shaped it and put in on a greased baking
sheet. they turned out just like my regular biscuit recipe.
this is just easier and less mess. try it. thanks so much.
i just found out about a month ago i’m gluten intolerant.
i bake all the time, so i enjoy a challenge. i cook for my
friends that are vegan, vegitarian, dairy free, etc. i
have been cooking for them anyway, but now i’m into mixing
my own flours, etc. trying to find the best recipes.
What is the best recipe for mixing my own gluten free flour, one that will be suitable to make biscuits and chicken and dumplings for my 13 year old grandson who is gluten intolerant? Also what is the purpuse of the xanthum gum?
Vera
Why not just take the biscuit recipe and multiply all the dry ingredients for a biscuit mix which make it quick and easy to make in smaller amount of biscuits if he is only one eating them. I do that and add dehydrated milk so I only need to add the liquids ingredients when I want biscuits. I also use that same mix for dumplings, muffins etc and works very well. I add the egg, vinegar and oil (I use oil not butter) with part of the water/milk and hold back the rest of the water/milk to adjust thickness of the dough. This has become the only recipe that I use for non yeast baking. I even modify it to make wonderful cornbread by using 1 part cornmeal to 2 or 3 parts biscuit mix and adding a half teaspoon more xanthan gum and half teaspoon more of soda and baking powder.
WOW WOW WOW! i am so glad i tried this recipe-they were extraordinary. thanks so much-it was great with thanksgiving dinner. i cut back 1/4 cup on the water, used buttermilk to replace milk/vinegar, and use egg replacerand they turned out fantastic.
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I made these tonight for dinner – only my second time baking something from scratch after going GF. The biscuits are light, fluffy, and *delicious*!
I traded out the flour blend for Bob’s All-Purpose GF flour, then added the xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I used rice milk + 1 egg yolk to mimic the consistency of regular milk. I also used Earth Balance vegan sticks. And, yes, grating the butter makes a HUGE difference; I’m convinced that’s why the dough was actually airy instead of the usual problem of being overly dense.
I have NO idea why so many people are having trouble with the dough being runny. I actually cut the entire recipe in HALF and still came out fine.
I’m a very, very happy camper 🙂
I tried these biscuits for the first time, following the recipe exactly. However, it took at least 30 minutes for them to get done at 350 degrees, and they were flat and not very biscuit-like. The taste was good. I will reduce the liquid next time. Have you tried baking them at a higher temperature, as regular biscuits bake at 450 degrees?
The batter for these biscuits was very runny (more like a pancake batter). So I put them in a cupcake tin with liners and baked for 17 minutes and they tasted pretty good.
This was a GREAT recipe but being lazy I wanted fast too…it’s a guy thing! The following works great and makes 8 biscuits in a muffin tin.
1 cup Bobs Red Mill Biscuit Mix, 1/2 cup corn starch, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 cup corn oil, 1 1/4 cup butter milk, 2 tsp cider vinegar and 1 egg. Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and liquid in another. Spray/coat muffin tin with oil and preheat oven 375 to 400 deg F. Add liquid to dry bowl and mix like heck until all dry ingredients just incorporated. Spoon out mixture into muffin tin filling each to about 3/4 full bake till slightly brown on top…about 15 min.
My batter was pretty runny too. I just tried to pile the batter up as much as possible. They puffed up nicely… did spread a fair bit… All in all, though, they were really delicious. I’m thinking next time I’ll go with 1 cup water, 1 cup milk. I think that ought to produce a more drop biscuit-like batter.