As any southerner will tell you (I am a native of Oklahoma), there is nothing quite as good as a warm, fresh buttermilk biscuit. It’s even better if it filled with delicious flaky layers of butter for that salty, buttery taste. Whew boy, it is one of my very favorite things to make! I really took my biscuit making to the next level when I discovered Cheryl Day and her cookbook: Cheryl Day’s Treasure of Southern Baking. If you don’t need to eat gluten-free, I encourage you to check it out.
Today, I am excited to share with you my almost 20 years of experience making biscuits, as well as my more recent discovery of how easy it is to make them gluten-free with the right flour blend! Let’s get started.
Differences in Biscuit Ingredients
The ingredients for biscuits don’t really vary all that much from recipe to recipe in a broad sense. They all include flour, butter or butter like substance, baking powder/soda, salt, a bit of sugar, and a liquid binder.
- Flour
- For those traditional bakers who can eat gluten, please do yourself a favor and use BOTH unbleached all-purpose flour AND cake flour in your biscuits. Oh man, this trick makes the SOFTEST biscuits
- For gluten-free biscuits, I strongly recommend my DIY GF Flour blend. The flavor is so good.
- Butter
- I adore the flavor and nutrition profile of grass fed Irish butter like Kerrygold. You can get it at Costco now too!
- Honestly, salted or unsalted butter works. It really depends on your personal preference. I like to top my biscuits with flaky sea salt for the punch of salt, so I choose to use unsalted butter.
- Vegan butter options work well too!
- Just make sure your butter is cold directly from the fridge!
- Liquid Binders
- I have the best luck when I use buttermilk or homemade butter milk (1 cup whole milk mixed with 1 TBS white vinegar). Especially with gluten-free biscuits. The thinner liquid makes it easier to mix.
- You can also use whole fat sour cream or whole fat Greek yogurt.
- Using whole fat products and not any kind of reduced fat version is important to get the flaky layers.
Differences in Preparation Technique
- Cutting in the butter
- There are lots of ways to cut the butter into your biscuits, and I have tried all the ways I know of. They include:
- Freezing the butter and grating it with a graterTossing all the ingredients in the food processorUsing a fork to cut in the butterUsing your hands to squish the butter into the flourCutting the butter in with a pastry blender
- There are lots of ways to cut the butter into your biscuits, and I have tried all the ways I know of. They include:
- To freeze or not to freeze the butter
- I have never seen a marked difference in using frozen butter vs refrigerator temperature butter. And I do not like how hard frozen butter is to work with. This is an added step that has not helped me much.
- Is laminating the dough by folding and stacking worth it?
- YES!!! Now this extra time and effort is worth it. The layers you get from the extra 3 minutes of time are well worth the effort.
Specifics to Gluten-Free Biscuits
When it comes to gluten-free biscuits, I want you to remember two things:
- The flour blend matters
- If you want the best flavor and texture, trust me when I say this is a product that makes a DIY Flour Blend worth making. I would put up with the hassle of making my own flour blend every day of the week for biscuits. It makes that much of a difference.
- Gluten-free baked goods ALWAYS need time to rest and hydrate
- You are going to hear me say this a lot: always build in time to your prep for a rest and chill. Giving the flours time to absorb the liquids is crucial to preventing the gritty texture you can get with gluten-free baking. Gluten-free flours just take more time to absorb liquids. They get there if you give them a chance!
The Perfect Flaky Biscuit: Gluten-Free or Traditional
As any southerner will tell you (I am a native of Oklahoma), there is nothing quite as good as a warm, fresh buttermilk biscuit. It’s even better if it filled with delicious flaky layers of butter for that salty, buttery taste. I am excited to share with you my almost 20 years of experience making biscuits, as well as my more recent discovery of how easy it is to make them gluten-free with the right flour blend!
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 12 biscuits 1x
- Category: Breads
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
Gluten-Free Flour
2 3/4 cups (425 g) DIY Gluten-Free Flour Blend (I strongly recommend this blend over any others for the best flavor)
OR
Traditional Flour
3/4 cup (94 g) cake flour (not self-rising)
2 cups (250 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
Other Ingredients are the same
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
12 TBS/ 1 1/2 sticks (170 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
Plus 2 TBS unsalted butter melted for brushing the tops
1 cup (227 g) buttermilk OR 1 cup (227 g) whole milk + 1 TBS vinegar
Flaky sea salt for sprinkling on top (optional)
Instructions
- Position a rack in the middle of the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. If you do not have buttermilk, mix the whole milk and vinegar together and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour (either gluten-free or 2 wheat based types, depending upon your dietary needs), salt, baking powder, sugar, and baking soda. Add the cold butter cubes and toss to coat. Working quickly, cut in the butter with a pastry blender, smearing them into the flour. You should have various sized pieces of butter ranging from course sandy patches to flat shaggy shards to pea sized chunks. This mix of sizes helps you get those nice layers and the flavor of butter. Give the bowl a good shake/toss to make sure all the pieces of butter are coated.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the milk, and use a wooden spoon or sturdy rubber spatula to mix the dry ingredients into the milk until you have a shaggy dough. You may also need to use your hands to get it fully mixed, but move quickly so your warm hands don’t melt the butter.
- If making gluten-free biscuits, STOP HERE. You need to chill the dough for AT LEAST 30 minutes. If you have an hour, your dough will be better for it. Remember, gluten-free flours need time to hydrate to prevent that gritty texture.
- Before you begin working the dough out of the bowl and cutting, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. For traditional wheat biscuits, I encourage flouring your counter with cake flour. For gluten-free biscuits, flour the counter with starch (corn, tapioca, or arrowroot). Don’t feel like you need skimp on the flour (either gluten free or traditional). If making traditional biscuits, your dough might look a little shaggy. Fear not! We are going to smear it all together now.
- Prepare to get messy! If you are wearing rings, now would be a good time to take them off and set them aside. Using the heel of your hand, smear the butter into the flour – that is how you build those flaky layers. Bring the dough together by smearing, folding, and turning it, then repeat until there are no more dry bits of flour remaining and the dough comes together in a mass. Gluten-free bakers – You probably won’t need to do this step. Your time in the fridge will help you with this!
- Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough into a roughly 12 by 14 inch rectangle. The exact measurement doesn’t matter all that much, but you are looking for a good sized rectangle that is about ½ inch thick or less. Have the long side of the rectangle toward you. Let’s get to laminating and making those layers! Begin by doing a tri-fold, starting from the right: Fold the right side of the dough over the center and then fold the left side over the first fold, lining up the edges and pressing the layers down. Ever folded up a towel into a tri-fold? It will look the same! Rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll it out again into a rectangle, then do the trifold again. Roll out into a rectangle, rotate 90 degrees, and roll into a trifold. You then want to roll it out one last time, cut it in half, and stack the two pieces together. Gently roll it out at this point to preserve those layers you have worked so hard to make! You want to roll it to about 1 inch thick.
- Dip the edges of a 2 ¼ inch biscuit cutter in flour/starch and punch out the biscuits. Do not twist the cutter, or you will seal the layers you just worked to create. It also causes the biscuits not to rise as high. Make sure to dip your cutter in the flour/starch after every cut. Arrange the cut biscuits on the prepared cookie sheet about an inch apart. Carefully gather up your scaps, press them together into a cohesive mass, roll them out again, and cut more biscuits. These ones won’t be as perfectly even on top, but they will still be delicious!
Should you wish to freeze the dough to use in the future, spread the cut biscuits out on a plate or sheet (depending on how many you are saving) and freeze them in a single layer. Once fully frozen, you can pile the frozen biscuits into a bag or storage container. You will bake them from frozen just like normal biscuits but they might a little extra time (3-5 minutes extra depending on your oven).
- Brush the tops with the melted butter or a little milk and sprinkle some of the flaky sea salt on top. The sea salt is optional but it is oh so good!
- Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes or so, turning the baking sheet halfway through. We are looking for a nice golden brown color on top, and when you life the biscuits up, there should be golden brown all the way across. If you see a circle in the middle of the bottom that is still dough colored and not golden, the biscuits need more time.
- Biscuits are best served hot from the oven! Enjoy!
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