There’s a million different ways to make homemade biscuits. In doing your research to determine a few good recipes, you will find that they all have one thing in common – it’s the key to baking perfect biscuits: Keep everything cold – cold ingredients allow biscuits to be flaky but moist.
Keep this in mind when trying this biscuit recipe!
Ingredients
* 4 cups self-rising flour
* 1 stick frozen butter, grated
* 1 ½ cups buttermilk (plus some extra for brushing)
* All purpose flour for the work space
Instructions
Begin by preheating the oven to 425 degrees. While the oven preheats, add your self-rising flour to a large mixing bowl.
Pull your completely frozen butter from the freezer, and using a cheese grater, grate the butter into a small bowl. Dump the bowl of grated butter into the large mixing bowl of self-rising flour, and very gently toss to coat all the butter in the flour. If you can, avoid using your hands for this, as the warmth from your hands will alter the temperature of the butter and flour mixture – your goal is to keep it as cold as possible.
Next, pour all of the buttermilk around the inside of the bowl, and aim your pour toward the edges, avoiding the center of the flour and butter mound. Using a giant wooden spoon (again, not your hands), fold the flour and butter into the buttermilk gradually until a rough dough forms. If more moisture is needed, feel free to add in a little more buttermilk. Once the dough is formed, pick a chunk up to see if it will stay together in your hand. If it’s too dry and breaks apart, add a little more buttermilk. If it stays together, you’re ready to form your biscuits.
Now spread your all purpose flour onto a clean, dry, flat work surface. Lay your mound of dough on top of your work surface, and using a quick and light, yet forceful motion, push the dough outward and flatten it to form a flat rectangle, roughly 2 inches thick. Fold the rectangle in half, and using your hands, repeat the process of flattening it back out, pushing the dough back into itself again. Do this 2-3 times to encourage the dough to hold better.
Lastly, using a all purpose flour-ed down rolling pin, roll the dough out until it’s a maximum of 1 inch thick. Using a sharp biscuit cutter, precisely press down into the dough to form the biscuits (without twisting or turning the cutter after insertion). Pull up the rounded biscuits and lay them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Once they’re all laid out, brush the tops of them with buttermilk and place in the center of the oven to bake for roughly 10 minutes or golden brown. Enjoy!
Image: iStock
