- 10
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
- 1 + tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold (1 stick),grate for ease in mixing
- 3/4 cup half-and-half or buttermilk - buttermilk preferred
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and grease a baking sheet or cast-iron skillet.
Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
Cut the stick of butter into pieces and work it into the flour mixture with your hands or pastry blender until it resembles pea-size crumbs. Add the half-and-half or buttermilk, mixing until the dough is a bit loose and sticky.
Pour the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for a minute. Dough should be smooth and no longer wet. You can sprinkle more flour on the surface if you find it's sticking. Make the dough into a ball and hit it with a rolling pin, turning it and folding it in half every few whacks. Do this for a couple of minutes.
Roll out the dough until it's 1/4 of an inch think, then fold it in half. Using a round biscuit cutter (you can use a glass or a cup if you don't have a biscuit cutter), cut out the biscuits from the folded dough. Place on a greased baking sheet or in a cast-iron skillet close together, about 1/8 of an inch apart (so they rise up not out), and bake for 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.
If you don't want to roll and cut them out, after kneading and beating the dough you can drop the dough onto the baking sheet with a spoon. They're not as symmetrical (dropped biscuits are also known as cat-head biscuits), but they're no less delicious.
Make
I have been looking for a biscuit recipe and this one is excellent. I shaved the butter and used a food processor the same as making a pie crust. DId not have to add any flour at the end and it was fun to pound the dough. Try this unusual method for baking biscuits, you will not be disappointed. Wonderful warm with butter and honey.
Debbie, when you add to the buttermilk to those biscuits isn't it better to have the buttermilk at room termperature?
These have been the best fluffy biscuits I've made yet. Thanks and frankly the idiot comments are just full of bad taste after all opinions are like...... Want healthy, I used organic butter better than any plastic processed crud... And KAF unbleached wheat flour, organic cane sugar... They turned out light fluffy and tasty. I'll try them with a gluten free blend later! And I'm not a CNN fan too much bias for my taste but this recipe is excellent.
Oh and I used organic half/half and agree that near every GF thing has been funky, but may try using oat flour a nut flour and another it's science working the GF thing, over rated but all the processed stuff these days and chemicals added has brought on many food allergies, and the democrat support of Monsanto has poisoned our food supply
Well I have these in the oven now and can't wait! My grandmother used to make hers with a dash of yeast for flavor, of course she didn't use butter but usually sausage or bacon lard (not healthy, but they lived without issue well into their 90's) As far as 'healthy' goes, that's like trying to make a pop-tart healthy, it's not supposed to happen. I've tried gluten free and every time they are awful no matter the chef. You want healthy and still good taste, keep your good buttermilk biscuits and change what you put on them. Try homemade jam instead of name brand, or better yet some honey.
I had a great aunt that lived her whole life in a little town in middle-of-nowhere Alabama, and she used to make the absolute best buttermilk biscuits. Her recipe was pretty much the same as Debbie's. Seeing this article though made me remember all of the mornings I spent helping her make biscuits.....and we had them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I'm sorry, but to try to make a biscuit healthy is about 10 types of wrong. I make adjustments to other things to make them healthier, but all you would succeed in doing by trying to make a biscuit healthy is ruining it. But in the top 10 of my most favorite things would be one of my aunt's biscuits, lightly buttered, with a big ol' spoon full of her homemade fig preserves on it. yum!
Benefit Cosmetics-35 years of making makeup not biscuits, I DO need patience, & "follow the directions". Well
Any idiot can make something taste good by loading it up with fat and salt. It takes real cooking skills to make something tasty that's also healthy. Those are the chefs we should be looking at.
Idiot? Wow – pretty testy today. Maybe you should have some salt, butter, and buttermilk. It might make you a bit more pleasant person.
These biscuits probably taste very good, but where's the whole wheat flour? Not very healthy.
They're biscuits, Honey. Who the f0ck makes them so they're healthy? Next people will be whining because they aren't gluten free. How 'bout fat free, but don't change the flavor? There's a chemistry challenge.
shut up already and quit trying to push your health kick on everyone else – if you don't like it then go back to your momma and have her buy you some whole wheat bread to keep you from crying
Just add gravy, it helps the white flour slide right on through.
Lots of interest in biscuits and I admit when I saw the headline I clicked right on it. Biscuits recipes are like...well you know...everybody who makes them or eats them has a favorite. Personally I have been making biscuits for 50 years and eating them for 8 more and I have tried a bunch of different ways of making them, looking for the holy grail of biscuits. Some things are a matter of taste but there are also some hard and fast rules to a good biscuit. First of all, that is way, way too much butter/lard/crisco for two cups of flour. I'm a born Southerner and even I don't use that much fat. The biscuits will be crumbly with that much. Using half and half should cut the separate fat even more. I use buttermilk that is fat free and only 1/4 cup of fat for 2 cups of flour. Using lard makes the biscuits crispier and they also taste good cold. I use that when making something like country ham and biscuits for a finger food gathering. Crisco is okay for eating them hot but not good cold. Butter is about the same as lard as far as texture the it does add a different flavor. Secondly and maybe using all that fat is the reason for doing this, but working the dough that much will most assuredly make hocky pucks. Biscuits should be mixed gently and kneaded only enough to make the dough cohesive, then patted out to the desired thickness. Kneading that much is for yeast bread and a rolling pin is for cookies and pie crust.
I agree with Debbie...working a dough of any type THAT much will make it tough! I've never heard ANY recipe say to beat and whack your dough like that. I'll listen to someone who's been making them for 50 years..not you!
Debbie, you're spot on. Great comments. I've been making biscuits since I was 10, and you never, ever want to knead them. Only work in enough flour to make a very soft dough, then either pinch off biscuits and pat them down, or roll them out and cut them. My one grandmother used Crisco, and that's the recipe I use today (gonna try the lard, though). My other grandmother used lard in the dough, then rolled them out, slathered them with softened butter, then folded over and slathered them again, repeating several times. It was time consuming, but I've never tasted a flakier biscuit.
Enough buttermilk to make a soft dough (amount varies depending on the weather and the flour. Make them a few times and you'll get the hang of it.) It's bout 3/4 cup though. ( I do not use sugar although you can if you like the taste of it. I have not found that it helps a baking powder rise at all. Yeast is different. It does needs sugar.)
Mix dry ingredients. Cut shortening or lard into flour mixture with fork, pastry cutter or hands. Add buttermilk and stir gently then turn onto a floured surface. It should be sticky at this point so use plenty of flour on your work surface and your hands. Fold/knead only 4-5 times to incorporate the dough into one piece. Pat out to about 1/2 inch thick and cut with anything round. Place in a greased pan or better yet a stone like Pamper's Chef sells. They will rise more if they're touching, spread out more if they're not. Bake at 400 degree preheated oven until golden brown. Time varies by oven but it's about 12-15 minutes. When they come out of the oven immediately brush with a little melted butter. Hope you enjoy them.
OMG....Delish! now I'm really hungry. I don't care how it's made as long as it's fluffy & flaky & hot.