Hot and fresh out of the oven buttermilk biscuits, slathered in butter and covered in jam! Mmmmmmm..
Okay, not the healthiest, but they're not terrible for you, and everything in moderation, right?
I'm not much of a bread gal; toast, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, I don't usually crave any of it. But when I'm working out and I need that carb boost, a warm buttery biscuit definitely does the trick.
When I found out I could make a vegan resemblance of buttermilk, you can bet I was excited. I've been using it with my chocolate cakes and now I'm adding these fluffy yummy biscuits to the list.
Don't be nervous about making biscuits, there's no fancy trick to it. You'll need one bowl, one fork, one wooden spoon, one pan, a few measuring cups and spoons and something round, like a cup or glass.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour (I used whole wheat)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
heavy pinch of salt
1 cup almond milk (unsweetened, unflavored)
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
4 Tbsp non-dairy butter (I use Earth Balance, no GMO's, and organic)
Process:
First things first, the buttermilk. Just add the lemon juice to the almond milk and there you go! It'll have the same reaction and flavor as regular buttermilk. Set it aside until we're ready for it. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In my experience with biscuits and breads, it's better to have a really hot oven so make sure yours is fully heated.
Mix your dry ingredients into a bowl. Then add butter and using your fork just work it through the dry ingredients. You can use your hands but the butter tends to get too soft so I stick with the fork. The mix will start to look a little like sand. You want to keep working it until the lumps of butter are no longer visible.
Create a hole in the middle of this mixture and pour just a little bit of the "buttermilk" in. Using the wooden spoon, slowly mix it all in. Keep adding the liquid a little at a time while mixing until it's all combined. It's going to be sticky and you don't want to over mix. As with most dough, you don't want to over mix or over handle. The biscuits will become flat if handled too much. On a floured surface, dump the dough out. Sprinkle a little flour on top and just lightly flip the dough onto itself about 5 times. You don't want to perform a full knead on this because we want them as light and fluffy as possible.
At this point, the dough should have picked up some more of the flour and it shouldn't be sticky anymore. Using your hands, lightly press the dough, spreading it out, into a one inch thickness. If you have a biscuit cutter, you could use it here. I was too lazy to get mine out, so I used the top of a shaker glass. It's a good size, and it's thin enough to cut through the dough. Press the cutter or glass down, twist a little and there's your biscuit. Take the scraps, lightly roll them up together and use it to make a few more biscuits. This recipe should give you 6 or 7 biscuits depending on the size of cutting tool you're using.
Place biscuits, touching together, onto a cookie sheet. Using your thumb, just make a little indent in the middle of each biscuit. These are going to plump up and we don't want them to look like domes. Melt a little more butter and lightly brush the tops with it.
Making sure your oven is fully warmed up, place them on the middle shelf. These will take between 10-12 minutes to cook. My oven gets really hot so 10 minutes is enough. You'll be able to tell because the tops will get lightly browned and your stomach won't let you wait any longer. Pull them out of them oven and devour! Add more butter, preserves, fresh fruit, or eat them plain - whatever you'd like! Enjoy!
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