Do You Enjoy a Warm Buttery Biscuit?

There’s nothing like a Southern meal with the down-home goodness of old fashioned fluffy biscuits. This beloved bread originated in Southern plantation kitchens and has spread its soul-food goodness across the country. The biscuit is a simple and quick 3 ingredient bread that requires some countertop space and a little time to work the dough. There are many more ingredients we can add to make our biscuits more interesting, but start with a simple recipe when first making this bread. The best part is that this recipe doesn’t use yeast or extra time to proof up. Some types of biscuits do require yeast, leaving me to wonder if it’s a true biscuit after all, but they are all delicious. Now let’s talk about techniques to achieve that perfectly flaky, fluffy biscuit.

First, we want to keep the cold ingredients cold until ready to use, this includes butter. Use a pastry cutter or work the butter in with your hands until the dough forms coarse pebble sized lumps of fat mixed with dry ingredients. Then, add in cream or buttermilk and mix by hand just until dough forms. Do not overmix or roughly handle this gentle, wet dough. Use extra flour to prevent dough from sticking on your work surface, hands, and rolling pin, if using one. Lastly, placement matters on the baking sheet. Biscuits cooked alone or not touching each other will cook evenly around the bread forming a golden brown crust-like edge and will be a little more dense. This is good for cutting in half for a breakfast sandwich. Biscuits that are closer together on the baking pan are touching each other when baked. We say the sisters help each other rise up when they are touching. The tops and bottoms are the only golden brown crusty bits and centers tend to be lighter and fluffier. Bake biscuits in a hot oven , 425F and don’t put them in until oven reaches this temp. As the biscuits come from the oven, serve immediately or keep warm in a bread warmer. These are professional trade techniques taught to me by the original Executive Chef of Poogan’s Porch historic restaurant at 72 Queen Street Charleston, SC. When I worked there as Sous Chef, we made biscuits twice a day and gave each table a complimentary basket with whipped salted butter for spreading.

Buttermilk Biscuits for 2, yields 4 biscuits

2/3 Cups Self-Rising, pre-sifted Flour. I prefer Southern Biscuit Flour (made in Newton, NC y’all )

1/4 Cup Cold Buttermilk, Whole milk, Cream, or Water for dairy free biscuits

1Tablespoon plus 1 Teaspoon vegetable shortening (such as Crisco) or salted butter

Preheat oven to 425F. In a large mixing bowl add dry ingredients and then add in milk, working with your hands until dough forms. Use extra flour to coat the working surface and tools used such as biscuit cutter and rolling pin. Wearing food safe gloves sprinkled with flour helps keep hands clean during the mixing process. Turn the dough onto your flat working surface, coat top of dough with light dusting of flour and begin rolling dough flat to about 1/2inch thickness. Fold dough in half and roll out again. Fold dough in half and roll out to 1/2″. Cut out 4 biscuits with a round cutter and pull together leftover dough to make the last biscuit. Place on metal baking sheet and bake until golden brown on top, roughly 5 to 8 minutes. Serve warm. Enjoy y’all!

This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to serve more people. You can see that a little counter space and dough can make a lot of delicious biscuits.