Buttermilk Biscuits

Rev:  1.08; last revised:  14-Mar-09

Together with my "sooper seekret" Sausage Gravy, this has become our favorite holiday breakfast.  These fluffy, light, tender buttermilk biscuits are a snap to make and wonderful to eat.

Ingredients:

* although I always use bread flour (it's all I have), all-purpose & pastry flour is fine as well.

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 450F degrees bake for 11 to 13 minutes.

Dry mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt with a whisk.  Mix them well.  In particular, you want to make sure that the baking powder is well distributed to avoid the little brown spots that will result if you don’t.

With a pastry blender, two knives, or by 'finger rubbing' cut the lard or butter into the dry mixture.  When the “crumbs” of lard are about rice grain size, mix in the buttermilk with a fork.

Mix lightly & gently, avoid over mixing.  Mix just enough to blend the materials and pick-up all of the dry mixture.  The most common mistake is to over mix this dough.  If possible, the lard, should be refrigerated so that it crumbles rather than smears.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Knead it gently, just enough to get the parts to “join” and not be crumbly.  Less than a minute should be twice as long as you should need.

On a floured surface, gently press or pat the dough to about a 1/2-3/4 of an inch or so thick.  I use the thickness of my hand laid on the surface, next to the dough, as a guide.

Cut out with a biscuit cutter, drinking glass, jam or jelly jar, or other conveniently sized tool and arrange on a cookie sheet.

For browner, crisper biscuits, leave a 1/2-inch or so space around each biscuit.  For lighter, fluffier biscuits, have them touch each other.

Bake:

Put into oven and bake 11 to 13 minutes until just slightly golden brown on top.

Enjoy by themselves with butter, jelly, or honey, or covered with my Sausage gravy and topped with some scrambled eggs!

Enjoy!