Buttermilk Biscuits

Man, do I love a good biscuit. I love the simplicity and the versatility. They're just...they're honest. They're an honest food, biscuits are, but a truly great biscuit recipe eluded me for far too long. This recipe and (more importantly!) this method is the result of fifteen years of experimentation. No joke.


Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp salted butter
2 tbsp shortening
1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat over to 450 degrees.

2. Start with the dry ingredients. Mix them together. In a bowl.

3. Make sure the butter is very cold and cut it into small pieces. Sprinkle the bits of butter into the bowl and add the shortening. Using a pastry cutter. like this one, combine the butter and shortening with the flour mixture until everything is more of less evenly blended. People say it's supposed to look like corn meal, but they're wrong. There should be visible but small pieces of butter still. They'll melt when you bake them, which will make the biscuits more light and flaky. Once everything is blended to your satisfaction, add the cold buttermilk. I generally mix it in with the pastry blender because using your hands will melt the butter and using another utensil just seems silly, but you know, you do you.

4. Liberally sprinkle a large cutting board with flour and scoop your biscuit dough on to the middle. It will be pretty wet and sticky and lumpy, but don't fret. Sprinkle the top with more flour, and don't be stingy. You're about to use your hands to pat this dough out, and you'll want it to be pretty well covered in flour so it doesn't turn cling to your skin so much. Pat the dough out a little bit and fold it over on to itself. Pat it out again, then fold it over again. Your dough should be much smoother now, and more like a bread dough in consistency. You may need to keep sprinkling it with flour, but it really should be less sticky by now. Pat the dough out, pretty thin, and fold it over on itself four times. (Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean?) Pat it out again and fold it over itself again, three or four times.

5. Trust me. All that patting and folding has a point. You are creating layers in the dough that will make for extra flaky, extra delicious biscuits. But you're done with that now. You can just pat them out once more, to about 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick and cut them out with a cookie cutter. I use one that's about 2 1/2-inches wide. Push the cutter straight down and lift it straight up. Don't twist it. Something about sealing of the sides and preventing them from rising. I don't know why it makes a difference, but it does. Straight up and down.

6. Put cut biscuits on a baking sheet, a couple inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes or until they look like biscuits you want to eat.