Star Biscuits

These biscuits are quick to whip up and go equally well with southern-style gravy or jam.  My kids love them!  If you don't want to use a cookie cutter, you can cut the dough into 1-1/4" squares, roll it into wee balls, or just spoon gobs of it right onto the baking tray.

Preheat your oven to 450°F/225°C -- very hot!

Mix or sift together 2 cups all-purpose/plain flour, 1 tbsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt (you can use self-raising flour instead of the plain flour and just skip the baking powder).  Stir in 4 tbsp of oil (I use sunflower oil or grapeseed oil, but pretty much any neutral-flavoured oil will do -- you could even use olive oil if you'd like these to taste all nice and olive-oily) OR cut in 4 tbsp of margarine or shortening (don't use hydrogenated -- it's bad for you and tastes funny).  Your biscuits will be a bit flakier if you use a solid fat, but it takes more work to incorporate that into the flour.  (You can probably use coconut oil, too, although I haven't tried it.  As a sidenote, coconut oil is a fantastic moisturiser.  I can slather it all over my face (it is great for the under-eye area) and it never makes me break out.)

Now you want to stir in about 3/4 of a cup of soy/rice/coconut/oat/whatever-milk.  I say about 3/4 of a cup because you want the dough to be moist, but not enough to stick to the sides of the bowl-moist, so use as much or as little as you need.  Once your dough is at this stage, dump it onto a lightly-floured surface (I use a plastic cutting board), knead it around a few times, and roll it out/pat it down (I just use the palms of my hand, not a rolling pin) so it is about 1/2 to 3/4" thick (about 1.5 cm for you metric folks).  Then get a wee cookie cutter (mine is star-shaped and about 1.5"/3 cm in diameter) and start cutting out shapes.  When you can't cut out any more shapes, roll the leftover dough back into a ball, pat it down, and cut out some more.  You should get about 3 dozen wee biscuits out of this dough (I always end up with 38).

Put your little dough cut-outs on an ungreased baking tray and pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes.  Keep an eye on them towards the end -- you want them to be golden brown, but not too toasty-looking.  You can eat them as soon as they are out of the oven, but they still taste delish once they've cooled down.  I don't know how long they will keep because I've never made a batch that lasted more than a few hours.  ;D