The Best Dairy Free Southern Biscuits

by DavidH4

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Intro: The Best Dairy Free Southern Biscuits

This is my great grandma MeeMaw's southern Texas biscuit recipe - adapted for dairy free! The basic recipe has been handed down in my family for 5 generations. Unfortunately I developed a dairy allergy as an adult so had to substitute the buttermilk for almond milk + lemon juice but they are still just as soft, flakey, and yummy!


Enjoy!

STEP 1: Preheat and Prepare Your Fat

  1. First, preheat your oven to 450F.
  2. You need cold fat and cold milk for this - so I start by slicing the shortening (half a stick of crisco is half a cup) onto a paper plate and throw it in the freezer for 15 minutes
  3. Great Grandma's original recipe called for buttermilk. To substitute, I mix 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk with a tbsp of lemon juice and put that in the freezer as well to chill

STEP 2: Prepare Dry Ingredients

  1. Whisk together in a bowl the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder
  2. Grease a baking pan (I used a round cake pan) with some butter or shortening

STEP 3: Mix Fat and Wet Ingredients

  1. After the fat and milk have chilled in the freezer for about 10 minutes (timing isn't critical, just needs to be cold), cut the shortening into the dry ingredients. This is best done with a pastry blender, but you can also use a couple knives or a food processor. You want to blend until you get about pea-size chunks of fat (see second picture).
  2. Pour in the milk/lemon juice mixture (it should have curdled a bit due to the acid in the lemon juice and will be a little chunky...this is good!)
  3. Mix with a spoon until a shaggy dough ball forms (see last picture above) and you've incorporated all the dry ingredients

STEP 4: Shape and Cut the Dough

  1. Turn the dough ball out onto a well-floured surface and knead it by folding over a few times. You want to be very careful not to over-work the dough - just fold over 3-4 times a most. Keep adding flour to the counter to keep it from sticking.
  2. Form the dough into a ball and that pat down so it's between 1/2-1 inch thick
  3. Cut the biscuits out of the dough using a round cookie cutter (or you can just cut them out with a knife to make square biscuits) and place into the greased pan
  4. You'll have to combine the scraps left over, re-knead them into a disk and cut them to use up all the dough.

STEP 5: Bake and Enjoy!

  1. Throw them in the oven (450F) for about 15-20 minutes until nicely golden on top
  2. Take them out of the pan and let them cool for a few minutes
  3. Enjoy with your favorite topping - I love butter and honey or jelly - or to go to level 11, make some sausage gravy and have biscuits & gravy!

2 Comments

Ronna Farley 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing this special recipe!!!