Recipe: Vegan Buttermilk Biscuits

I’ve never made biscuits before, but had a sudden craving on Friday night while crashed out on the couch watching X-Men. I found this Alton Brown recipe and since we don’t have real butter or milk in the house I made it vegan. It was super fast and easy – I don’t cook any other way! And they turned out so good, by Sunday night the entire dozen were gone!

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter / Earth Balance buttery spread
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled (I made buttermilk by combining 1 C soy milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice, then let it set for 10 minutes)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don’t want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that’s life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

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