The Vegan Buttermilk Biscuit, Mastered

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375°F (191°C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat. Set aside.
• If you haven’t already, cut your butter into cubes. Put the cubes in the freezer while you prepare the other ingredients.
• Prepare your buttermilk. Add the apple cider vinegar to the milk, give it a quick stir, and put it in the fridge.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
• Take your cubed butter out of the freezer, and dump it into your flour mixture. Toss the cubes around to make sure every one is coated with flour — none sticking together. Start working the butter in by smushing cubes in between your fingers and palm – smush and let go. You don’t want that cube spending too much time pressed against your warm hands. Do this until the butter is roughly the size of peas throughout the mixture, almost like a crumble. You can also use a fork or a whisk to do this by smushing the butter against the sides of the bowl. See above photos for reference.
• Take your milk mixture out of the fridge, make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in most of the milk mixture — reserve ~3 tbsp. You may not need it. Work the milk in with a wooden spoon or spatula until just combined. Don’t be afraid to smush large clumps, as they can hoard a lot of moisture that you want to be evenly distributed!
• Important part: here’s where you check on consistency. Your dough should generally dry & crumbly, but just wet enough to form a ball when squeezed in your hand. The dough should not feel very wet. See above photos for reference. If it’s still too dry, add more milk a tbsp at a time. Once you’ve arrived at the right consistency, dump the dough onto a lightly floured counter top. The dough should be messy and crumbly still — this is normal.
• Form the dough into one mass and flatten/roll it into a rough, flat, rectangle shape. Fold the dough into thirds over itself, so that you end up with a stack of dough three layers high. Roll the stack out again, then do it again. Repeat this process a total of three times — this is what forms the biscuit layers. On the last time, roll the dough out to about an inch in thickness, or the diameter of a quarter. See above photos for reference.
• Now, the easiest way to cut the biscuits is to form them into a clean rectangle and then cut them into 8. If you prefer round biscuits (like me, for really no reason at all other than aesthetics), use a biscuit cutter, but do NOT twist the cutter as you cut. This impacts the layers. Lay your cut biscuits out on the sheet pan.
• Lightly brush each biscuit with melted butter, & bake your biscuits for roughly 30 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway between. The biscuits should be golden on top. Take them out and sprinkle each biscuit with flake salt. Set the pan on a cooling rack, and let cool for ~5 minutes before eating. I highly suggest trying one right away, because they are absolutely best when freshly baked.