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dairy-free buscuitsBiscuits are a cold weather favorite at our house. For the past few years, I’ve experimented with my old biscuit recipe, substituting different ingredients for the butter and milk to make them dairy-free. The experiments have gotten mighty close to perfection, but I’ve not quite nailed it yet. So when my niece posted a recipe on Facebook called the Best Damn Vegan Biscuits, I had to give it a try.

The original recipe found at the Minimalist Baker website had many, many steps and many, many pictures and many, many reminders to follow the directions exactly for the biscuits to live up to the recipe’s name. Not exactly minimalist, but I overlooked the discrepancy, and followed the directions exactly, hoping to finally achieve dairy-free biscuit perfection.

The biscuits were very good, but in my opinion they fell short of perfection, too. That said, they were good enough to give the recipe one more try, this time using lard (remember, I’m not vegan, just dairy-free) as the shortening to see what happens. But until then, here’s the recipe.

Dairy-Free Biscuits

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks
1 cup unsweetened, unflavored almond milk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. If using a baking stone, slip it in the oven to heat. Put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a one cup measure. Pour in almond milk to 1 cup line. Allow it to sour for 5–15 minutes.

Combine dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut cold Earth Balance stick into thin patties on top of the dry ingredients. Cut in the shortening with fingers or pastry cutter until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Work quickly so the shortening doesn’t get too warm.

Make a well in the dry ingredient/shortening mixture. Stir gently with a spoon while pouring in the almond milk mixture 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is slightly combined and sticky. You may not need all the almond milk mixture.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Dust the top with flour and then gently turn the dough over on itself 5-6 times, handling the dough as little as possible. Form into a 1 inch thick circle. Cut dough into circles with thick dough cutter or drinking glass. Push straight down through the dough, then slightly twist. Place biscuits on baking stone or baking sheet in two rows, making sure they just touch – this will help them rise uniformly. Gently reform the left over dough and cut out one or two more biscuits for a total of 7 or 8.

Next brush the tops with a bit more of melted non-dairy butter (1 skipped this) and gently press a small divot in the center using two fingers. (I did that step, but the dough was so sticky I had to flour my finger first. Hence the flour circles on some of the biscuits in the picture.)

Bake in a 450 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until fluffy and slightly golden brown. Serve immediately. Let remaining biscuits cool completely before storing them in an airtight container or bag.