Now that you’ve made your own sweet, sweet jam, wouldn’t you love to slather it on a warm and fluffy biscuit with some butter? These biscuits have been a long time in the making and, when I say a long time, I mean over a year and a half of experimenting with the recipe, using every type of gluten free ingredient imaginable, and having several results that weren’t exactly edible. I’ve learned a lot about making gluten free biscuits along the way.
Here are just a few of my lessons learned: too much guar gum makes for nasty, chalk-tasting biscuits; glutinous rice flour tends to make the biscuit bottoms chewy; using glutinous rice flour and no xanthan gum leaves the biscuits dry and crumbly, but you’ll still have chewy bottoms; whipping an egg white and folding it into the biscuit dough doesn’t seem to add much in the way of fluffy (i.e., don’t waste your time); using shortening tends to make the biscuits very dense and heavy; and attempting to replace the buttermilk with coconut milk and a little lemon juice changes the texture in an ugly way and makes the biscuits taste not quite horrible but not very biscuit-y, either.
I also discovered that making the perfect biscuit, or at least my opinion thereof, doesn’t require a blend of half a dozen different types of gluten free flours and who knows what else. Thank goodness for that, right? When I simplified the ingredients, I got the results that I wanted. I realize that this isn’t always the case with gluten free recipes, but I knew it was a good omen when I picked up a cooled biscuit and it felt much lighter than it looked. Believe me, this was a rarity during my year and a half in search of my favorite gluten free biscuit.
inspired by Alton Brown’s Southern Biscuits (my pre-gluten free favorite)
makes 10-12 biscuits
Ingredients
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup brown rice flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
4 Tbsp. butter, unsalted, chilled, cut into small cubes
1 cup buttermilk
2 egg whites
cooking spray
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper or by lining them with foil and a light coating of cooking spray.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, add cornstarch, brown rice flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine with a fork until ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the mix. Add the chilled butter cubes and work the butter into the dry ingredients using your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture has a sandy, crumbly texture.
3. In a small measuring cup, measure the buttermilk and add the egg whites. Pour the wet ingredients into the mixture of dry ingredients and butter and work with a fork until just combined. This is a wet, slightly sticky dough, and you can easily make these into drop biscuits if you’d like at this point, but I personally prefer to use cutters to make the biscuits. If you’re using the “cutter” method, then spray your hands with cooking spray and turn the dough onto a floured or non-stick surface (I just use another sheet of parchment paper), forming it into a 3/4 inch thick disc. Spray your dough cutter (I use a 2 1/4 inch round) with cooking spray and cut as many biscuits as you can from the dough, reforming and cutting until the dough is gone.
4. Move the biscuits to the baking sheets and place in the oven. Immediately lower the temperature to 400 degrees F and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown. Serve warm. The biscuits also store well in the freezer.
Posted in Bread and Biscuits, Favorites, Food, Gluten Free, Side Dishes | 13 Comments »
These look yummy. I am going to have to try these! xoxo
posted: August 30th, 2009 at 1:56 pmThese biscuits look good. Have you tried making them with rice milk and artificial eggs? My husband is sensitive to gluten, all dairy and eggs.
posted: September 1st, 2009 at 5:37 pmAnn
Ann – I haven’t tried making them with rice milk, so I can’t guarantee that this will work, but if you mix 1 cup of rice milk with 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice or vinegar and allow it to sit for about 10 minutes, you should have a good non-dairy replacement for buttermilk.
I haven’t tried the recipe with egg replacer, either, but because the egg is there to act as a binder I think that artificial eggs should work just as well.
Hope this helps, and let me know how they turn out if you try the recipe!
posted: September 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 amWe have been making these with egg replacer and almond milk. They are fantastic! Thank you so much for working out this recipe and sharing it.
posted: December 24th, 2009 at 3:59 pmI just love biscuits, and going gf in my cooking thought it not possible to have flakey & fluffy biscuits again. Thanks for your work on these…you’re brilliant! BTW, I used your suggestion for rice milk and vinegar, and it worked nicely.
posted: February 16th, 2010 at 12:41 amWow, excellent. I appreciate the simplicity of your recipe. I used to be famous for my flakey biscuits back in my gluten days, so how wonderful to have a GF recipe to try so my boyfriend can enjoy my baking skills again.
posted: March 27th, 2010 at 2:12 amI am sooooooo glad to have found this recipe and your website. I have made it numerous times and have enjoyed the consistency, even with minor errors and substitutes! Thank You for your devotion…You are a blessing to the GF community!
posted: April 16th, 2010 at 5:48 pmI wanted crackers and decided to add a little garlic salt to the mixture. I dropped teaspoon size batter into hot olive oil and flattened. They made a delicious, crispy side to our hamburger stew. Thanks for the recipe.
posted: April 21st, 2010 at 7:16 pmWill rice flour made from white rice work? I saw it in the grocery store today and it’s so much cheaper than the brown rice flour…
Another question: I tried the recipe about a month ago. I followed it to the letter except for milk (I did an almond milk/vinegar sub). It was too mushy to roll out and use a biscuit cutter. I made drop biscuits instead, and they were delicious. But I was just wondering if there’s anything you’d suggest to make the dough more pliable?
Thanks for all of your hard work!
posted: April 24th, 2010 at 6:37 pmWow, you guys are making my week! I’m so glad to hear that you’ve had good results with the recipe.
And, Debbie, great idea! Hamburger stew sounds tasty.
susie – White rice flour should work as a substitute for the brown rice flour, but the biscuits may have a slightly different texture. Shouldn’t be a big deal, though.
What I do, since the dough is rather wet, is lay down a piece of oven parchment, spray my hands with non-stick cooking spray, and pat the dough down by hand until I have the thickness I want. After that, I cut the dough with a biscuit cutter (you can spray the cutter, too, if you find that the dough is too sticky). This method works really well for me. Hope this helps!
posted: April 24th, 2010 at 7:04 pmSomething I tried as a sub for buttermilk, since I’ve become sensitive to all the really good stuff in my dottage.
posted: July 21st, 2010 at 2:05 amIused half soy milk and half soy yogert mixed together. It worked great. These biscuits are tres’ bon!
…and today I had the first real strawberry shortcake I’ve had in a long time due to these biscuits. The way we did it in Iowa. I now live in the Pacific NW and local berries are at their peak. I’d even make these for normies without hesitation.
posted: July 21st, 2010 at 11:48 pmI am so glad to find sites like this!!! I have been known for my baking and cooking skill but since finding out I have extensive food allergies (dairy, beef, eggs, gluten, the list is just awful) I haven’t even really wanted to be in the kitchen. Thanks so much for all your hard work in making recipes that actually work for those of us who cannot eat what we love!!!
posted: July 25th, 2010 at 11:35 pm