Fluffy and Delicious Biscuits
2 cups flour (plus some for rolling out the dough)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup plain nondairy milk (I use soymilk)
nonstick spray
The first thing to know about biscuits is they're a quick bread, and shouldn't be messed with too much. Once you've mixed the wet and dry, there shouldn't be a lot of fiddling around with them.
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut in shortening. Once you've got nice, relatively consistent crumbs of shortening and flour mix, pour in your soymilk just until wet and dry ingredients are combined. Don't overmix!
(to cut in shortening: spoon the vegetable shortening into the flour mix as you use two butter knives in a scissor motion to break it up and mix it. If you've done pie crusts it's the same thing. If you've never done it, no big deal, you'll get the hang of it. Just try to get it as small as you can, but don't work it too much.)
2. Roll dough on a lightly floured counter top to about an inch or so thick. Fold in half and roll again. (This will get the nice layered biscuit. Also, don't roll the dough out too thin. Tall biscuits with lots of layers, are the key, I think.)
3. Grab a biscuit/cookie cutter, or glass, and start cutting biscuits. For your extra dough, I roll it back into a ball, and start over. Roll it out to an inch or so, fold it over, and roll it out again. I use a spray on oil and a cookie sheet, and toss them in the oven.
4. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until done.
Source of recipe: I veganized, and further modified my girlfriend's mom's biscuit recipe
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Turned out pretty good! I substituted earths best butter for shortening and it worked. I cut the cold butter in just like I would have done shortening. I didn't use the full cup of soy milk, maybe more like 3/4 cup. They definitely don't rise much so don't roll out too thin. The folding over thing worked too for the layers. Thanks for sharing!
I made these on the fly this morning - I think the amount of liquid used also depends upon what region you live in. I recently moved to a muchhh higher elevation, and adjusting liquid for recipes was a long, painful learning process, haha. I started with 3/4 C flour, and didn't have to adjust anything else. I folded & rolled them out 3 times to add more layers, and they turned out nicely with EB and gravy. I'll use this from now on instead of my lazy drop biscuit recipe :) Thanks!
I just made these for the first time as i have always been a "drop" biscuit type of person. This called for too much milk (I used rice milk) and i had to add more and more flour and now they taste kinda.... blahhh. Good thing i have a yummy soup to dip them in! I would add more flour and salt.
yum! I want fluffy biscuits for Christmas, and these look like the basic fluffy killers I'm looking for.