Vegan Biscuits
These biscuits are the first part of my ultimate vegan brunch that I'll be rolling out piece by piece. To make biscuits, I recommend you pick up a set of biscuit cutters. I suppose you could get away with using some cookie cutters to cut them, but biscuit cutters will make your life way easier! I picked up a set of 4 sizes on Amazon for $11.
I have tried to make these with less fat in the past, but they didn't have enough moisture and didn't flake well enough. Never fear, I will have some lower fat bread-y type recipes in the future, but for now just enjoy the biscuits =P.
Ingredients
- 1 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1 cup pastry flour*
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup non-dairy milk, my favorite are the almond/coconut milk blends
- 4 Tbsp non-dairy butter, in stick form**
* If you do not have pastry flour just use 2 cups all-purpose flour and increase the amount of milk to 3/4 cup. Just keep in mind that they will not be as soft without the pastry flour.
** I use Fleischmann's vegetable spread, Earth Balance sticks, or any non-dairy butter sticks that you can find. Out of those two, I prefer the taste of Fleischmann's. Whichever you pick, try to use the stick butter as they will make better biscuits then spreadable butter. If you can only find the spreadable kind though you can still make some damn good biscuits so you are still free to proceed :P
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450F
2. Cut the butter into small cubes. Make sure the butter is COLD. Ideally, the flour and milk should also be cold.
*It is important that the butter is cold so when it is worked into the flour mixture, the pieces of butter become flour-coated crumbs, not a smooth dough. This is what creates the delicate flaky texture. - If you don't get this right and your butter is creamy, don't stress too much they will still be good.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda into a large bowl.
*The trick with biscuits is to touch them as little as possible. So work swiftly and do not overwork the ingredients.
4. Add the cold butter and then use a fork to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Do not over-mix—there should still be some solid pieces of butter, the mixture should look like flour-coated crumbs.
5. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the non-dairy milk. Using a wooden spoon, gently stir to form a loose/lumpy, sticky dough. As soon as the dough just comes together, stop mixing. There may be some dry and/or wet spots, this is okay. If the mixture is really dry, add another tbsp or so of milk.
6. Lightly sprinkle your work surface with some flour and then turn the dough out onto it. Sprinkle with a bit more flour and then fold the dough over onto itself about 3 or 4 times. Again, do NOT over- mix the dough.
7. Gently form the dough into an approximately 1-inch thick disc. Using a floured biscuit cutter, cut the dough into rounds. Gently re-form the remaining dough and cut out the remaining biscuits.
8. Next, lightly spray a small baking tray with non-stick spray (or cover with a piece of parchment paper). Place the biscuits onto the tray in two rows. The two rows should touch, as this will help the biscuits rise more evenly in the oven.
8. Brush the tops of the biscuits with the melted butter and transfer to the preheated oven. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly browned and a tester comes out clean. The texture of the inside should be light and soft and the tops should just faintly have started to brown (see pictures).
9. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack. Serve immediately while still very hot.
Serve
Serve plain, with jam or gravy.
Allow any remaining biscuits to cool completely, before storing them, airtight, at room temperature. They may also be frozen. Reheat before serving.