Buttermilk biscuits are a southern staple. Warm, soft, fluffy and buttery biscuits are immediately inhaled with just about any meal. Depending on what you made them for, cut them open and slip a pat of butter between their flaky layers, drizzle honey over the top or eat right from the oven, naked and warm. Then there is the other option…smothered in steaming hot sausage gravy.
When I was “ready”, my grandma gave me a recipe for her buttermilk biscuits. I was so excited because I’d watched her make these with a pinch here, a cupped hand there and viola! we had biscuits. Twenty years later, I’m pretty sure she left an ingredient off my recipe because they never turned out as good as her’s. Then I realized, it wasn’t the recipe and pinches of this or that, that made great biscuits. It was the family sitting around the table eating them together. It was stealing biscuits off my brother’s plate when he wasn’t looking. My favorite was watching grandpa feed his biscuit to one of the great grandbabies.
It doesn’t matter if we are having a supper filled with fried chicken, okra and honey topped biscuits or a bleary eyed Sunday morning breakfast filled with sausage gravy, thick sliced bacon and steaming biscuits. It’s the biscuits that accent each meal with a beloved taste.
Don’t worry, these are not intimidating and can be made on a weeknight, in a rush. There is no rise necessary, so you can mix, bake and inhale.
A positive attitude and a sense of humor go together like biscuits and gravy.
GOOD FOOD. GOOD FRIENDS. GOOD TIMES.
Buttermilk Biscuits
Print This
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting your board
- 1 ½ Tablespoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 8 Tablespoons cold butter, cubed and frozen
- 1 cup whole fat buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the buttermilk in the freezer and let it rest until ready to mix (less than 10 minutes)
- Sift together dry ingredients in a bowl (or food processor). Using pastry cutter (or pulse setting on FP) cut in frozen butter cubes until mixture resembles course meal.
- Gently add buttermilk and fold with rubber spoon until combines. Don’t overmix! Dough will be slightly wet and sticky.
- Turn out dough onto a floured board. Roll 5-6 times in your hands, turning it into itself. Then gently pat into a 1” thick dough. Make sure to do this quickly so your butter doesn’t melt on your hands. Don’t use a rolling pin; it will make your biscuits tough.
- Using a round cutter or a glass dipped in flour, cut the biscuits. Leftover scraps can be re-balled and have more biscuits cut. Handle as little as possible so the butter doesn’t melt. For soft edges, place the biscuits touching each other. For golden edges, place them 1 inch apart on the pan.
- Bake 14 minutes or until golden brown. Don’t overbake. Eat!!
Note: Handle dough as little as possible. Keep your butter cold cold cold. If you have been handling the dough and butter is smearing, put the dough in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Then go back to working dough.
