These delicious, lightly sweetened gluten-free biscuits are made with flavorful, nutritious flours ground from oats, tapioca, and brown rice. With the absence of gluten in the flours, you’ll need to add a bit of powdered xanthan gum (made from fermented corn syrup and found in the specialty flour sections of most stores), which binds and adds volume to baked products. Without the xanthan gum, the biscuits would be quite crumbly. Some gluten-intolerant individuals are also sensitive to oat flour (oats contain a protein similar to gluten); for those folks, you may substitute gluten-free oat flour or sweet white sorghum flour. Each biscuit is loaded with a generous scoop of jelly, so you get blackberry with every bite!
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
¾ cup oat flour
½ cup sugar, divided
1½ teaspoons xanthan gum
1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream, divided
½ cup good-quality blackberry jelly or other fruit jelly or jam
MAKES EIGHT 4-INCH BISCUITS
1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flours, ¼ cup of the sugar, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk thoroughly to combine. Make a well in the center and pour in 2 cups of the cream. Working quickly and gently with a rubber spatula (overmixing can result in tough scones), fold the cream into the dry ingredients. This should take about 1 minute.
3. Sprinkle a work surface with brown rice flour. Turn the dough out and roll it into a 3-by-14-inch log. Divide the log in half, then cut each half into 4 pieces to make a total of 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a roughly circle-shaped biscuit. Place the biscuits 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops of the biscuits with the remaining 2 tablespoons cream and sprinkle them with the remaining ¼ cup sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown on the top and bottom. Cool on the sheet for 15 minutes.
4. Using a teaspoon, scoop out a quarter-size piece from the center of each biscuit, digging about halfway down. Fill each indentation with about 1 tablespoon of the blackberry jelly.