Buttermilk Biscuits

Here in the south there are a few menu items that are nonnegotiable, and one of them is a really good buttermilk biscuit. Biscuits are great multitaskers; you can eat them with any number of extras for breakfast, add a little cheese and herbs to the dough and serve them with dinner, or top a pot pie with them. The biscuit recipe I use has only three ingredients and I have used it for years with excellent results.

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Start with a good solid base of butter. Make sure it’s unsalted butter!

Add in some self-rising flour and cut it in with a fork until the texture is crumbly and there are no more big chunks of butter. A quick word on flour: my flour brand of choice for this recipe is Great Value. Other flours work too, but be prepared to add or subtract a little liquid because different brands seem to have different rates of buttermilk absorbency.

Dig a little well in the middle, pour the buttermilk in, and start stirring.

Once the buttermilk is all mixed in you should have a ball of slightly sticky dough that holds together when you handle it.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, sprinkle a little more flour on top, and roll it out to about 1 1/2 inches thick.

Cut out biscuits using a 3 inch round cookies cutter, or a glass with a thin rim. That’s what I use ’cause I’m a fancy Nancy.

Place the biscuits on an ungreased nonstick baking sheet about an inch apart and bake at 450F for 15-17 minutes.

Serve with butter and your favorite jelly, or with gravy, or with sausage in the middle. Or any other way you can think of of to eat a hot, fluffy biscuit.

Buttermilk Biscuits
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 15 – 17minutes
Makes 10-12

12 Tbsp unsalted butter, slightly softened
3 cups self rising flour
1 1/3 -1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450F. Measure the flour into a bowl with the butter and use a fork to cut the butter into the flour until incorporated, with no large bits of butter left. Use your fork to scoop out a well in the middle of the mixture and pour 1 1/3 cup buttermilk into the well. Stir it all together, working the buttermilk in until you have a thick, slightly sticky ball of dough. You may have to add a few more tablespoons of buttermilk to get the right consistency, depending on the flour you use. Turn the ball out onto a floured workspace and dust more flour on top. Roll out the dough to a uniform thickness of about 1 1/2 inches and cut out the biscuits using a 3 inch round cutter. Re-roll the scraps of dough and continue cutting until it’s all used up. Try to cut them as close to each other as possible so that you don’t have to keep reworking the dough over and over, which makes for tough biscuits. Place the biscuits on an ungreased nonstick baking sheet about an inch apart and pop them in the oven for 15-17 minutes. You’ll know they are done when they are lightly golden brown on the top. Serve hot with your favorite biscuit fixings.