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 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.

Gluten Free Drop Biscuits
(Yield: 1 dozen)

2 c. of my gluten free 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.

Related Posts:

• Gluten Free Drop Biscuits Recipe No. 2
• Black Bean Sausage Recipe
• Gluten Free, Casein Free Bread Stuffing for Thanksgiving
• Gluten Free Waffles
• Breakfast on a Budget – Cream of Corn Cereal