I don't revamp my recipes too often, but biscuits keep being redone. I guess I'm on a journey to find a healthy biscuit recipe! Or maybe I'm just a perfectionist about my biscuits...
At first, I made low fat whole-wheat vegan biscuits by substituting Tofutti non-hydrogenated cream cheese in place of butter or shortening. (This was actually Scott's genius idea). Then when I wrote The Happy Herbivore Cookbook , I changed it still again by using a banana.
The subtle hint of banana doesn't always jive with what I am making, however, so I created yet another biscuit recipe in Everyday Happy Herbivore . That one uses white whole wheat flour and applesauce (no banana), and it was my attempt to make that recipe for breakfast that led to today's recipe.
I was all out of applesauce because I'd used applesauce for oil in a cake recipe the night before. I sent Scott to the store to get some, but he came back with 10 things, none of which were applesauce. Instead of sending him to the store again, I opted to make instant homemade applesauce (p. 277) in The Happy Herbivore Cookbook .
It's so easy to make applesauce yourself: just add an apple (or pear) to a blender with a little water and pulverize it. Voila!
I wasn't looking when I was pouring out my applesauce, however, and I accidentally dumped all of it into my flour mixture. My new recipe uses a little applesauce and some non-dairy milk, but the flour was so wet with the applesauce that there was no need for any additional liquid.
I gave it a few stirs and since the batter seemed to come together, I decided to just bake them as is, half expecting a total failure.
The result? My biscuits came out beautifully and really fluffy. They also had a nice light sweetness to them and a lovely speckled look from the bits of red apple skin.
I've since made these blooper applesauce biscuits two more times, once adding cinnamon and another time adding fresh rosemary. I can't even begin to say what I delight they are! A real testament that accidents are often a good thing!
I wouldn't use these to stand in for biscuits in another recipe (for instance, they're a bit too apple-y for "biscuits and gravy") but they're a terrific and healthy breakfast biscuit option.