"Making homemade biscuits is not hard to do. You basically MEASURE dry ingredients, CUT in cold butter, TOP with milk and STIR. You can either drop or cut your biscuit shapes and bake them in a buttered pan in a hot oven until they are toasty. Split a hot biscuit and smear on some butter and you have a feast!"
Homemade Biscuits
First thing: Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all purpose flour (unbleached is best)
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder (make sure its fresh)
- 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- 5 1/2 Tablespoons COLD salted butter
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk
- Adding a little plain greek yogurt to the milk makes the best biscuits (Add a heaping tablespoon of plain, greek yogurt or sour cream into the measuring cup before adding the milk to measure it. Give it a good stir to incorporate.)
- 2 cups of self rising flour can be substituted for the all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt combo - since self rising flour already has baking powder and salt in it. (Self rising flour makes THE BEST biscuits!)
Instructions:
ADD slices of COLD butter on top of the flour (shortening or COLD stick margarine works fine in a pinch).
CUT the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender (or two knives or a fork - I prefer to use a pastry blender) until about the size of small peas.
POUR over the 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk (I use 2% milk and sometimes I add a scoop of plain yogurt to my milk before I measure it making sure to stir well before adding to the flour.)
SPRAY a large pie pan, iron skillet, or cookie sheet with cooking spray or grease well with butter.
Form the biscuits: Biscuits can be "drop biscuits" or "cut biscuits".
For Drop Biscuits:
Place 1/2 to 1 cup flour on a plate or in a small bowl.
Drop a scoop of dough (a heaping 1/3 cup scoop) onto the pile of flour. Toss around to coat with flour just so it doesn't stick to your hand. Place the floured biscuit blob in the greased/sprayed pan and pat just enough to take the rough edges off.
Place the biscuits almost touching - but very close to each other - in the pan. (Biscuits get taller by "climbing on each other".)
Bake 15-20 minutes @ 400 ° or until browning a little bit.
For Cut Biscuits which gives "layered biscuits":
Sprinkle flour on a surface safe for rolling dough.
Dump out the biscuit dough and form into a single mass, roll or press out until 1/2 inch or so. Fold into thirds; roll/press again. Fold into thirds, roll/press again but this time only roll/press to 1 1/2 inch thick. Now ready to cut the biscuits.
For tall biscuits, cut with an actual biscuit cutter. A glass will work but the rounded edge on a glass "seals" the dough which inhibits the rise of the biscuit a little bit. Sharp edged biscuit cutters work best as you cut straight down. Don't twist the cutter.
Place biscuits on buttered/greased pan just touching each other since biscuits needs their friends to grow tall.
Bake 15-20 minutes @ 400 ° or until browning.
Freezing unbaked biscuits instructions:
You can place unbaked biscuits on a cookie sheet (not touching at all) and flash freeze. Then bag them up for baking later on. To bake, place in greased pan, touching each other and bake @ 400 ° approximately 25-30 minutes or until browning.
The Chit Chat:
I grew up mostly eating homemade biscuits. The ONLY time we ever got canned biscuits was when we were at my Granny's house. I don't think my Granny loved cooking. If there was a shortcut, she took it! LOL.
That's not to say that she didn't make some completely delicious food. She could make a mean pot of spaghetti sauce which all of us grand "younguns" (as she called us) thought was the very BEST SPAGHETTI ON THE ENTIRE PLANET and her conch peas and sweet tea? PURE BLISS! (But that's for another day...) I loved eating canned biscuits at her house. My brother and I would get to split a can. But, at home, we had homemade biscuits which we also loved.
I make homemade biscuits at my house. Doug sometimes buys and cooks his own canned biscuits but I try to talk him out of those things when I can. lol. My girls both dislike canned biscuits. They only eat and make homemade or frozen biscuits in their own homes so its a good thing I mastered this craft early on....
"Down South" we ate our biscuits with cane syrup or jam or just with butter. We ate them often, sometimes a few times a week, for breakfast or as an extra side with supper. Of course, our MOST FAVORITE way to eat biscuits growing up was to eat biscuits split in a bowl and topped with hot chocolate pudding for dessert although our mom used box mix for the hot pudding. "Puddin' and Biscuits" is like chocolate pie's country relative. And don't knock it until you try it. The biscuits are like a thick crust under the warm pudding and it's just divine, I tell ya.
Anyway - try your hand at making homemade biscuits. Make some chocolate pudding - or not! If you make them as often as I do, you won't need a recipe for long. You will be able to make these biscuits in your sleep...one of those recipes you know by heart...
Enjoy!
Gina
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