Easy Buttermilk Biscuits

Man Christmas is really sneaking up on me this year! Since I decided to stay at school so I could work over break I’m missing out on my mom’s Christmas decorations and the neighborhood lights. Luckily I have a great neighbor from home that sent me some pictures of our house all lit up 🙂

One thing that never fails to get me excited for the holidays are the festive commercials! I would have to say the Target ones are definitely my favorite. The one that makes my mouth drool the most though is the commercial for Grands Biscuits. Those were soooo delicious; I couldn’t help but try to recreate them. Sadly I failed; I admit it. But don’t worry I won’t give up! Good news is that in the process I made up a tasty buttermilk biscuit recipe! This biscuit turned out crispy around the outside and soft in the center. You can enjoy them with either a savory meal and some butter or sweeten them up with jam or pb!

Easy Buttermilk Biscuits

• 1 cup Almond Milk
• 1 Tbs Lemon Juice
• ½ Flax Egg (1/2T ground flax + 1.5Tbs water)
• 1 Tbs Agave or Honey
• 1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• 1 cup All Purpose Flour
• 1 Tbs Baking Powder
• ½ tsp Salt
• 3 Tbs Earth Balance Butter
• 2 Tbs Peanut Butter

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix together milk and lemon juice and let it sit to make buttermilk. Stir the honey into the buttermilk. Mix together the flax egg and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt then cut in the butter and peanut butter until you get a flaky texture. I found it was easiest to use my hands rather than a spoon. Place the flour mixture in the freezer for about 5 minutes to re-chill the butter. Remove the flour mixture from the freezer and create a well in the middle. Slowly add the buttermilk in 3 batches then place the dough on a lightly floured surface.

Knead the dough just until it is not sticky then roll it out about ½-¾ inch thick. Now comes the fun part! I used Christmas cookie cutters but you can form the dough into simple circles if you do not have any.

*Place the biscuits close together on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Brush the top of the biscuits with the flax egg then place them in the preheated oven and bake for 22-24 minutes or until lightly brown.

*Placing the biscuits close together is what keeps the sides and inside of the biscuits soft and the tops brown and crispy.

You could totally use this dough to make dumplings as well, which I plan on doing in the near future 🙂

My attempt to make the stocking look cute with strawberry jam 🙂

Thanks to my tendency to procrastinate I have yet to put up my garland, hence the Christmasy background!

The height of the biscuits is ultimately up to you! If you want more of the soft inside then make them a little taller. If you like the crispy part the best go for the shorter wider biscuits. Either way they are quite yummy!

Do you have any special holiday traditions that you get excited for each year?

Pumpkin Cranberry Gingerbread

Oofta it’s been a long couple of weeks! I have to give a big thank you to Charissa for holding up the blog basically all by herself recently! I always seem to procrastinate right up until the time when I should be spending my time studying for finals. Needless to say I have been living in the library this past month! I’m sure quite a few of you know what I mean. So as I took that long-awaited breath of freedom today I thought about what yummy treat I could make myself to celebrate the end of my semester.

My reward definitely needed to be something with a holiday touch considering I haven’t had a chance to properly get into the Christmas mood yet. Cookies? Ha! With my oven, yeah right. I have literally tried everything but I just cannot get used to baking cookies in an electric oven. I bought an oven thermometer and I am fairly certain that the temperature fluctuates quite a bit during cooking. While home over Thanksgiving I made some delicious chocolate chip cookies so I absolutely refuse to believe that it is my fault 🙂

Anyway back to the brainstorming! I reeaallly was in the mood for gingerbread men because it had been so long since I’ve had one! So how can I enjoy Gingy’s flavor without wasting my time trying to adjust my oven? The answer was so easy it was staring me in the face, gingerbread men… ginger… BREAD… men. Why not make a loaf of gingery goodness?! But let’s not stop there, throw in some pumpkin and cranberries and you’ve got yourself a holiday bread worth sharing with the family!

A few notes before we get started. You will be tempted to take the bread out of the oven before the hour is up but don’t do it! Trust the time recommendation or you will end up with a very dense loaf of bread.

Also you should beware, the smell of this bread will make you so giddy for Christmas that you might be tempted to wrap it up and put it under your tree, only to rip the paper open seconds later and yell Merry Christmas!!

Pumpkin Cranberry Gingerbread

• 1 Flax Egg (1 Tbs. Ground Flax + 3 Tbs. Water)
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• ½ tsp each Ginger, Allspice, Salt, Baking Powder
• ¼ tsp each Ground Cloves & Nutmeg
• 1 cup Wheat Pastry Flour
• 1 cup All Purpose Flour
• 1/3 cup Lite Silken Tofu
• ½ cup Canned Pumpkin
• ¼ cup Molasses
• ¼ cup Stevia (Cup-for-Cup Powder Version)
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1 cup Hot Water
• ¾ cup Fresh Cranberries
• ¼ cup Dried Cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare the flax egg. Combine the spices with the baking powder and soda, salt, and flour. In a separate bowl mash the silken tofu until there are no chunks then add the pumpkin puree. Next mix in the molasses, flax egg, stevia, and vanilla. Once all the wet ingredients are combined add ½ cup of hot water and stir. Gradually stir half of the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Then alternate stirring in the last ½ cup of hot water and the rest of the flour mixture. Lastly fold in the cranberries and scoop the dough into a lightly greased 9x5in baking pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool for 5 minutes in the bread pan then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

* This would also be delicious with some toasted walnuts or pecans.

* I recommend refrigerating or freezing this bread because of the high moisture content.

This is what the tofu+pumpkin mixture should look like before adding the remaining ingredients. I know it looks gorgeous! Another quick note, it is important that you use lite silken tofu in this recipe. It is in there to replace the oil and if you use regular block tofu your results will be much different!

The texture of the dough before baking should be slightly thick.

Nice and golden brown! It is much easier to cut after it cools nearly all the way, you can always heat up your slice in the microwave!

This bread is very yummy with Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Butter! (Thanks to my family for sending it to me in a care package!) If you don’t have pumpkin butter regular vegan butter is delish as well, or you could get creative and slather on some pb or jam!

What is your favorite holiday treat?