buttermilk biscuits

Look at that! I bet you want to know how my biscuit looks that beautiful. No secrets here. I just followed my Grandpa Oliver’s advice, if you can read you can cook.

I got the best biscuit advice from two different sources, Chrissy Teigen and Reese Witherspoon.

Chrissy’s contribution was the emphasis on cold butter. Not just butter that was cold, then cut up and left on the counter. Not good enough. Put that cut up butter back in the fridge until it is COLD and you are ready to use it within seconds. I tried it this way and combined with the advice from Reese, I’d say we have a winner.

I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of this but to have layers in your biscuit you need to make layers in your dough. Thanks Reese! Roll out the dough so it is about an inch thick, then fold the dough in half and roll it out again. Repeat this rolling and folding. I probably did it four times. The last time you roll the dough out, roll it so it is about half an inch thick.

Cut the biscuits out in a straight up and down motion. Don’t twist the biscuit cutter!

Place the biscuits on a baking sheet right next to the edge of the pan and right next to each other so they are touching. I had not ever heard of this but it makes sense. The biscuits will rise taller instead of spreading out wider if they don’t have room on the sides to expand. Apparently biscuits are very supportive of each other.

Keep gathering the scraps of dough and re rolling until there really isn’t enough dough to make another biscuit. Here is the last piece of advice …use that little bit of leftover dough to roll with your hands into a snake shape. Put that bit of dough next to the biscuits on the pan that don’t have any other biscuit friends to support them on their sides.

I didn’t have time to get a photo of the freshly baked pan of biscuits before they were devoured. The only proof I have is the photo of these remaining three biscuits.

These really are as good as they look. We love them served right out of the oven but they also freeze really well! If you freeze them unbaked, they can be baked straight from the freezer. Talk about a time saver!

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
1 cup buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients in a mixer bowl. I use my Kitchen Aid mixer because it makes this process easier. Use the paddle attachment and mix it on stir or 2 for about 30 seconds or so.

Cut the cold butter into tiny pieces like I’ve shown above. Except you should finish the job! The tinier the better but about this size will do. When it’s all cut up add the butter pieces to the dry mixture.

Mix the butter in at a low speed until the butter looks like pebbles in the flour.

Pour the buttermilk into the butter and flour mixture. Mix on a low to medium speed until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture looks similar to the above photo. This happens sooner than you think, so keep an eye on it. Once the mixture doesn’t have any obvious liquid in the bowl and the dough sticks to the paddle stop mixing.

Put the dough on a lightly floured surface. I’m a fortunate girl because we remodeled our kitchen last year and now have quartz counter tops. Quartz is a fantastic surface to roll dough on and it seems to require less flour, if any at all, to keep the dough from sticking. Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Use your best judgement.

Use a biscuit cutter or even a small glass will do, and cut the dough into biscuits. Try to keep your circles close together. Then place the biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet making sure that they aren’t touching each other.

This part is a little like playing with Play-dough. Take the scraps in your hands and form them back into a lumpy ball and then roll them out again just like you did the first time. Repeat cutting the biscuits out and placing them on a baking sheet. Gather the scraps again, roll out the smaller lumpy ball, and cut out what biscuits you are able to get.

When you get to the end and only have a tiny bit of dough just take that piece of dough and roll it into a ball in your hands and call that little thing your last biscuit!

Bake the biscuits at 450 for about 12-15 minutes. Below is the color we are looking for so start checking them at about 12 minutes so that they don’t over bake.

Enjoy them warm, split them in half and spread with butter, jam, or whatever you choose!

Tag: buttermilk biscuits

How to make even better Buttermilk Biscuits