Buttermilk Biscuits

I hate canned biscuits. There's something bitter about them. 

Unless, of course, they are deep fried and smothered in sugar...but that's a different blog!

But I love fluffy, buttery, biscuits. So I went in search of a recipe. I came across this one and tweaked it a little and I think I've finally got the perfect recipe and technique! 

Here's my tweaked version.

Buttermilk Biscuits

3 C flour 
1 1/2 t. salt
1 T. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 stick butter
3/4 C buttermilk (or 3/4 c. milk + 2 T. vinegar)
1 egg
1/8 C water 

I read somewhere that the secret to fluffy biscuits is the butter. It needs to be cold and in bigger chunks. I put mine in the freezer, then let it set for a bit so my food processor can handle it. So it's not quite frozen, but colder than fridge temps. 

I rarely plan ahead enough to have buttermilk when I need it, so I make mine. You can do it with lemon or vinegar, but the magic of baking soda and vinegar in baked stuff is awesome, so I use vinegar. I let that sit in a bowl for a minute while I mix up the dry ingredients and butter in the food processor. 

Then I whisk the egg into the "buttermilk" and add the water. 

Dump all the dry ingredients in with the wet. Then stir til it just starts to stick together. 

There's a fine line between "fluffy" and "flat rocks" when it comes to biscuits. It has a lot to do with how much the dough it worked. So once I get it mixed together, it's still really wet. I put a pretty generous amount of flour on the counter and on my hands and knead it a few times til it looks a bit smoother. I DON'T roll it out with a rolling pin. They never come out fluffy when I do. I just kind of smush and pat them out til the dough is about an inch thick. 

Then I dip a cup in flour and cut the dough into biscuits. (I have circle cutters and they would probably work great but I'm way too lazy to dig through the cookie cutter box to find them and cups are just sitting right there in the cupboard!) This is where the flour on the counter comes in. The dough stays pretty sticky and it's almost impossible to get them off the counter if there's not a lot of flour under them. 

Then they go on a greased pan for about 14 minutes at 425º. I pull them out when I see the bottoms start to get brown and the butter is melting out of them. 

My next "tweak" with these is going to be herbs and bits of cheese!