I’ve tried a number of biscuit recipes in my search for THE recipe.  It took some tweaking, but I finally have a recipe worthy of being the go-to recipe whenever biscuits are on the menu.   The results have been consistently good, so if you’re wanting to take the plunge into making homemade biscuits, this is a recipe I can vouch for.

 

 

 

Fluffy Biscuit Recipe

2 cups all purpose flour

3 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sugar

5 1/2 TBS butter, cold, cut into small pieces*

approx. 1 cup buttermilk**

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Measure dry ingredients and mix them in a bowl.  Using a pastry blender or a fork, cut the pieces of butter into the dry ingredients.  You should have a pebbly texture with visible chunks of butter.  Add enough buttermilk to make a dough that holds together but is not too sticky (amount of buttermilk may vary slightly depending on the flour you use as well as humidity in your kitchen).

Roll out dough to desired thickness (I prefer at least 1/2 inch thick) – use a dusting of flour if needed to keep dough from sticking to counter.  Cut out biscuits to desired size (photos show biscuits cut out with a wide-mouth Mason jar, which is about the size of store bought Grands biscuits).

Place biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, until biscuits have risen and are the desired shade of golden brown.

Brushing the tops of the biscuits with melted butter before and after baking makes them extra tasty.

*To get a stick of butter into small pieces, cut off the 5 1/2 TBS from the stick, unwrap it and put it on a plate standing tall.  Slice it into 3-4 slices.    Put the slices back together and turn the butter rectangle onto its side, cut another 3-4 slices long ways in the butter.  Finally, cut across the rectangular slices to get small pieces of butter.  Make sure to keep the butter cold – put it back in the refrigerator for a few minutes before adding to the dry ingredients if your kitchen is warm and the butter softened while you were cutting it up.  Use your fingers to separate the pieces of butter as you put them into the bowl.

 

You can substitute 5 1/2 TBS beef tallow or 1/3 cup vegetable shortening in place of the butter if desired.  I highly recommend brushing the biscuits with melted butter before and after baking if using beef tallow or shortening. 

 

**Don’t have buttermilk?  Put 1 TBS of white vinegar or lemon juice into a measuring cup and add regular milk to make 1 cup.  Mix and let it sit in the refrigerator to stay cold while you are mixing the other ingredients.  The vinegar/lemon juice will sour and thicken the milk.  You need to use soured milk/buttermilk for this recipe not only for taste, but also for the chemical reaction between the buttermilk and the baking powder & soda to get a good rise in the biscuits.  Buttermilk info link