Talk about a staple of PA Dutch cooking … the biscuit is one of them. Although I can’t say we eat primarily PA Dutch food, we sure do like a good sausage gravy over biscuits. In fact, my husband and I used to take off on a Friday morning (pretty often) and head to the Farmers’ Market in Lancaster Co. for some good, old fashioned biscuits and gravy. He said they made the best he’s ever had.
Well, the reality is that if you’re gluten-free you’re not going to get a good biscuit out at a restaurant. And, if you’re in Lancaster County, PA, you’ll likely not even get gluten-free toast at your typical PA Dutch restaurant or diner. It’s sad, because I know the Plain community is suffering from gluten intolerance at the same levels as the rest of society. My guess is that restaurants just don’t want to carry something foreign to them.
That being said, I never had that sausage and gravy over biscuits that my husband got so many times at the market because, gluten-free. There is no such thing as gluten-free biscuits for restaurants and unless I start making them, there probably never will be.
But, not all is lost. Here’s a great recipe for you to make them at home! It’s quite a simple GF recipe in that you mix all the dry stuff, mix all the wet stuff then mix it all together. The dough is lovely to work with. It’s cool to the touch because of the yogurt/sour cream (whichever you used) and it stays together very well.
I like my biscuits cut with a round circle cutter but these can be made as drop biscuits too. That will save you even more time as opposed to cutting them out. You could also keep a couple jars of the dry ingredients mixed up already, with instructions to complete the recipe, and only have to add the wet ingredients to get the recipe started even faster. It’s like making your own convenience foods at home!
So, a few notes for this recipe:
• I use King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten-free flour.
• This recipe will work equally well with either sour cream or yogurt. You choose.
• Make sure to not make them too thin as they don’t puff up a whole lot. Basically, make them the thickness you like to eat them. I suggest at least an inch.
• I added a bit of sugar to the recipe to help it brown. There’s not enough in there to make it sweet.
• These are amazing used for sausage gravy, smothered in butter, used as breakfast sandwich rolls or generally any time you’d like to have a side of bread with your meal.
- 1 ¾ cup gluten-free flour (King Arthur Measure for Measure)
- 1 Tbls. cane sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 Tbls. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- 4 Tbls. butter, melted
- ¾ cup sour cream or yogurt
- 3 Tbls. half & half
- Preheat oven to 400˚
- Combine all dry ingredients.
- Combine wet ingredients.
- Combine and mix thoroughly.
- Pour out on lightly floured surface and pat to about 1" thick. Using a round biscuit cutter, cut biscuits.
- Reknead remaining dough edges and pat out again to 1" thick. Cut remaining biscuits repeating as needed.
- Bake for approximately 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and serve.