Last updated on August 29th, 2020

Tender and fluffy gluten-free biscuits made with almond flour. Make these easy buttery biscuits with buttermilk or milk! Serve warm with butter and jam, topped with gravy, or add a tablespoon of sugar for strawberry shortcake biscuits.

I’ve been craving biscuits. The kind you can split open and top with butter and jam or sausage gravy for breakfast, eat as a precursor to dinner, or sprinkle with sugar and layer up with whipped cream and strawberries for dessert. While I’ve been making cobbler and pot pie with soft tender gluten-free biscuits nestled on top for years (see here, and here, and here, and here), the perfect simple classic gluten-free biscuit on a baking sheet remained elusive. Until now, that is. 

These homemade gluten-free biscuits are versatile, making this a back pocket recipe to keep on hand wherever it is you store your most-loved recipes (recipe card box? binder of printed recipes? folder on your desktop?).

I developed these gluten-free biscuits as part of my ongoing collaboration with OXO. This month, in honor of OXO celebrating 30 years, I’m featuring some of my most-used OXO products while making homemade buttermilk biscuits, a classic recipe that also lasts through the decades.

If you’ve been here before, you know it’s no secret that my OXO tools are well-loved in my kitchen. I’ve been using OXO products ever since I got my first measuring cup in college, which is also about as long as I’ve been making buttermilk biscuits. Here you’ll see just a few of the products I use in my everyday baking and why I recommend them!

How to Make Gluten-Free Biscuits

Everyone needs a go-to biscuit recipe. I baked Joy of Cooking’s buttermilk drop biscuits for years before becoming gluten-free. Since then, my forays into gluten-free biscuits churned out biscuits that, while edible, tended to spread too wide with a very moist cakey center. Tasty, but I craved the flakey light fluffy biscuits of my past. 

It turns out that, for as simple as biscuits are, gluten-free biscuits require much more precision in measuring and method than gluten-free cakes or cookies. I’ve outlined everything you need to know to get that quintessential biscuit. 

Gluten-Free Biscuit Dough

While it seems counter-intuitive, having a well-moistened dough turns out biscuits that are lighter and fluffier. The dough may at first seem too moist and sticky. Just be sure to dust your surface and hands well with tapioca flour and have a multi-purpose scraper handy to keep the dough and biscuits from sticking. 

Flour Blend for Fluffy Gluten-Free Biscuits

I’ve made over a dozen batches of biscuits a dozen different ways and the fluffiest most flavorful biscuits were made with almond flour. This final recipe started as a riff on the almond flour biscuits from my blueberry cobbler recipe, but the first iterations spread too much and were too moist rather than fluffy.

I also discovered that sheet-pan gluten-free biscuits need a balance between higher and lower-protein flours to help them rise and bake up fluffy. So to balance out the high-protein almond flour, oat flour was swapped out for a combination of lower-protein flours: millet and tapioca flour. 

The result is a fluffy gluten-free biscuit that’s balanced and buttery in flavor. 

Gluten-Free Biscuit Recipe Tips

Many of these tips apply to general baking, but here are my top tips for ensuring you get the best gluten-free biscuits. They’re all easy tips, but read them trough, lest you end up with dense biscuits.

Use a scale to measure your ingredients

Biscuits are especially susceptible to becoming dense hockey pucks when too much flour is used. The way you scoop and measure a flour can drastically change the weight of a cup of flour. This is exacerbated with gluten-free baking, in which you measure out multiple types of flour. Moreso, different brands have different coarseness of the grind, which also affects how much a cup of flour weighs. Use a scale to make sure you’ve got accurate measurements.

Whisk your gluten-free flours well

Once you add the butter, you want to do as little mixing/handling of the dough as possible to keep the butter as cold. To ensure your gluten-free flours are well blended then, whisk them well before cutting in the butter.

Grate frozen butter into the flour

The most successful methods to cut the butter into the flour for gluten-free biscuits are to use a food processor or to grate frozen butter right into the flour bowl. I opt for the latter method because I hate washing appliances. Use frozen butter so the butter stays cold without the heat from your hand melting it as you grate. The OXO etched two-fold grater can be used upright like a box grater or detached so you can lay it directly over a mixing bowl. I especially love this grater because it’s super sharp and makes thin wide curls.

Feel free to make your own buttercream

Whenever I have buttermilk on hand, I make biscuits, but more often than not, I want biscuits when I don’t have buttermilk. Don’t let that stop you! Add 1 tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice to the measuring cup then top it off with milk to equal 1 cup. The OXO angled measuring cup makes it so much easier to precisely measure 1 cup without accidentally pouring too much.

Chill the flour and butter mixture before adding the buttermilk

To keep gluten-free biscuits from spreading flat, keep your ingredients as cold as possible. After tossing the grated butter into the flour, give it another chill before adding the milk. 

Cut tall narrow biscuits

Gluten-free biscuits are more prone to spreading out than their gluten counterparts. To encourage tall fluffy biscuits press your dough out to 1¼-inch thick and use a 2-inch biscuit cutter. When cutting the biscuits, be sure to press down then straight up without twisting the cutter, which would pinch off the sides, discouraging rise.

Bake on a sturdy, light baking sheet

Biscuit bottoms can easily get too brown using a flimsy or dark baking sheet. I recommend the OXO non-stick jelly roll pan because it’s thick, light-colored, and textured to promote even baking. 

Brush the warm biscuits with butter

Do it, you won’t regret it.

Best Gluten-Free Biscuits

With this recipe and list of tips, you’re so close tender fluffy buttery gluten-free biscuits you can almost smell them. If you’re just baking for 1-2 people, you can easily halve this recipe to make 4-5 biscuits. Or split the dough and bake half with the sugar option to make strawberry shortcake for dessert!

More Gluten-Free Dough Recipes

• Gluten-Free Soft Pretzels
• Gluten-Free Pizza Dough
• Gluten-Free Dumpling Wrappers
• Gluten-Free Cassava Flour Tortillas
• Gluten-Free Almond Flour Pasta

OXO tools & gadgets featured in this post: Stainless Steel Measuring Spoons | Good Grips Pop Containers | 11lb Food Scale | Good Grips Glass Mixing Bowl Set |Etched Two-Fold Grater | Non-Stick Pro Jelly Roll Pan | 2-cup Angled Measuring Cup | 11-inch Balloon Whisk | Silicone Oven Mitt | Non-Stick Cooling and Baking Rack | Pro 8″ Chefs Knife | Multi-Purpose Scraper | Pastry Brush

This post is sponsored by OXO, a long-term partner of Snixy Kitchen