Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Buttermilk Biscuits - Just like Cracker Barrel!





My daughter, Rebecca has been it again!  She has beat me at my own game!

I consider myself a biscuit connoisseur!  I grew up with only southern homemade biscuits (unless I stayed at my granny's house where we were TREATED with canned biscuits!).  We eat my homemade biscuits (recipe HERE) for breakfast with jelly or white gravy, with supper, for snacks, and my favorite way - for dessert (split, underneath some hot, homemade chocolate pudding -recipe HERE)!

My daughter's favorite biscuits, however, are not mine.  No way!  It can't be!  What's wrong with the kid?  

Rebecca's favorite biscuits are found in, get this... Cracker Barrel restaurant.  Being the adult and grownup that I am, I'm going to admit and put out there that Cracker Barrel has some pretty delicious biscuits!  I'll give her that!  But mine are the best homemade biscuits... that is, until we tried her new recipe!

Rebecca searched online and found a recipe for homemade Cracker Barrel Biscuits.  Are they as good as Cracker Barrel?  You betcha!  Her biscuits nail the texture, taste, and size.  She has outdone her mother in biscuit making.  What's the world coming to?

Rebecca's "Buttermilk Biscuits" are made with self rising flour.  You can find a substitution for self rising flour but I don't recommend it.  Buy a bag of self rising flour and after you taste these biscuits, you will be making them all the time.  (Self rising flour already has the baking powder, salt, and flour mixed together.  It saves lots of dishes and measuring to just keep some on hand.)  I think the self rising flour and the buttermilk give these biscuits their spot on, perfect flavor.  I normally by organic or unbleached flour.  But, I'll be buying myself a bag of self rising flour!

These biscuits also use buttermilk.  Rebecca uses buttermilk found in the dairy section of the store, in a carton.  I cannot be sure these will taste the same if you use a mixture of milk+vinegar or lemon juice (to make homemade buttermilk) or if you use powdered buttermilk.  I think you need to get actual real thing.

I am the first person to play around with recipes.  I will NOT be playing around with this recipe.  They are perfect!

Here's how Rebecca makes Buttermilk Biscuits AT HOME HER WAY:





Buttermilk Biscuits
(just like Cracker Barrel)

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups SELF RISING flour
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1 1/4 cup buttermilk (Rebecca sometimes uses 1 cup buttermilk + 1/4 cup regular milk)
Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Make sure your flour is "fluffed" (not straight from the bag; just dump it in a larger container and stir using up and down motion to fluff it up a little bit-THEN measure out 2 cups). 

Measure flour into a mixing bowl.  Add shortening and cut it until small and crumbly. A fork works fine for this purpose.  Stir in milk and stir with a spoon until all mixed.

Flour a small area on your counter/work surface. 

Work the biscuit dough into one big blob in your bowl (don't you like my official recipe terms?)

Place the dough on the floured surface and press until 1 to 1 1/2 inch thick.  You can roll it a little with a rolling pin but that's purely optional, to me.  Cut with an upside down cup/glass (Rebecca uses a wine glass) like this:



Place the biscuits, close to touching, in a sprayed or greased pie pan or cake pan.  (Makes about 8 biscuits.)

Bake in a PREHEATED oven at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

I took some home with me from Rebecca's house the other night to have with my free soup (made from leftover dabbles  of veges that I keep in the freezer, adding in some canned tomatoes, a few cubed potatoes & carrots, some tomato sauce, and leftover beef.)




Let me know if you think they are as good as Cracker Barrel!



Enjoy!
Gina

10 comments:

  1. Thanks for that recipe and for making me HUNGRY! Since we are iced in AND I don't have any buttermilk, I'll have to wait! BUT, I will be making those biscuits:) Enjoy your day dear friend, BIG HUGS!

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    1. Ha! I'm sorry you are iced in. I am so ready for summer! We have had our share of being iced in also lately. Take care and let me know if you try these. They are so delicious! And we also loved eating them leftover.

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  2. Oh yum! They look very similar to what we call a "scone" here - our biscuits look like your cookies.We eat ours as a sweet treat, covered in jam and cream. Your way looks delicious too. x

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    1. Hello Gillian! Thank you for commenting! We make what I call scones with a similar recipe as for my "biscuits" with the addition of egg and sugar. Funny how we are eating similar food, just calling it something different. Thanks again for visiting my blog. Great to see you here.

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  3. Great minds must think a like . . . I was so hungry for biscuits today, that I baked a batch just because. Not to go with a meal, but just because I had a craving :)

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    1. Hey Connie! Did you make this recipe or one of your own? Sounds like a great reason to bake biscuits to me! One can never have enough biscuits...

      :)

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  4. I've used Cooks Illustrated mile high biscuit recipe and it gets rave reviews - best served with sausage gravy! :D

    http://www.mybizzykitchen.com/2010/11/01/phase-i-day-one/

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  5. My biscuits didn’t quite rise- what did I do wrong??

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    1. Hello! Hmmmm.. This is what I would try:

      *Make sure your SELF RISING flour is FRESH.

      *Also (because I had this problem recently), I have decided NEVER to use Pillsbury self rising flour ever again. I had some and every time I made biscuits, they were dry and crumbly and just tasted awful. Not sure what the issue was but I'm not taking any more changes. Biscuits need to taste good!

      * If you get self rising flour at a store that may not sell very much of it, it still may not be fresh.

      Instead of using self rising flour, you can substitute 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons FRESH baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of table salt. This combination replaces only the self rising flour in this recipe.

      * Another thing to try. Make sure when rolling out/cutting, that the biscuits (dough) are fairly fat.

      * Place the biscuit dough pieces almost touching each other in the pan. They really use each other to climb higher.

      Sorry yours didn't rise so well. Hope these troubleshooting ideas help. Let me know how it goes!

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  6. Hi there!!! I ate at Cracker Barrel today and it was amazing! I had to order biscuits Togo! Just for future reference, do these biscuits freeze well and re-heat or not made for freezing? I love making ahead and freezing a lot of my recipes. Thank you so much for the post! I definetly will be making these very soon!

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