Sometimes there is nothing better than a fresh fluffy biscuit!
While I used to make biscuits – tiny 1-inch ones to go in my bread baskets at Stardust, I really learned to perfect them when I started teaching a breakfast class at JWU. These are great for breakfast in the usual ways, for snacks – think spread with my sorghum molasses butter, or for lunch – filled with garden tomatoes and my spicy pimento cheese. Yum!
You may not like that I am putting you – the baker – in the situation to make a few choices about how you want your biscuits, but, sorry! I don’t know how you are going to like them! If you just want my direction, I say – grate, square, hugged up and salted agave – READ the notes if you want to know what in the world that all means ~ enjoy!
Buttermilk Biscuits
Buttery, lightly sweet, fluffy biscuits!
Equipment
- 1 Large bowl (Or skip the bowl and do on a large cutting board)
- 1 Bench scraper
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Pair of gloves (If you don't want your hands to get messy!)
- 1 2-inch Biscuit cutter (If you want round biscuits)
- 1 Half Sheet Pan
- 1 Pastry brush
- 1 Ramekin or small pot (For melting the agave or salted butter to brush on top)
- 1 Digital scale
- 1 Set Measuring spoons
- 1 Liquid Measuring cup
- 1 Box grater (or knife and cutting board) (to grate or chop frozen butter)
Ingredients
- 20 ounces All-purpose flour (by weight)
- 2.25 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1 ounce Baking powder
- 1 ounce Granulated sugar (by weight)
- 7 ounces Unsalted butter (by weight – freeze before cutting or grating)
- 16 ounces Buttermilk (by volume)
- Have extra flour on hand as needed to keep dough from sticking to the surface of rolling out biscuits.
For brushing on tops after baking:
- 2 ounces Unsalted butter
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 ounce Agave syrup
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375℉.
- Weigh and then freeze butter for at least 20 minutes, while gathering all other ingredients and equipment.
- Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl (or on cutting board if doing that way)
- Grate the frozen butter with a box grater on largest hole grater (or chop in very small pieces). *IF butter warms, place back in freezer for a few minutes to chill!
- Cut butter into dry ingredients with the bench scraper.
- Make a well in dry ingredients. Add buttermilk and mix lightly until just comes together as dough. Very important – Do not overwork.
- Turn onto floured board or surface. Knead until soft, but not too wet. Use book method to fold dough into layers. Do this twice.
- Roll out to 1/2” thick – no thinner! Use floured cutter to cut 2-inch biscuits (do not twist – ! – or the sides will not rise properly). Decide whether to put biscuits touching each other closely for softer sides or more spread apart for more crispy sides on half sheet pan.
- Bake at 375˚ for 10 minutes and then turn the pan around to bake for another 10 minutes. (Convection ovens will bake more quickly – try 5 minutes and 5 minutes).
- Melt butter, salt and agave in small pot or microwave.
- Remove biscuits from oven when they look lightly browned on top and cooked all the way through.
- Once biscuits are lightly browned and fully cooked, use the pastry brush to coat the tops with the agave butter.
Notes
This recipe gives you a few choices to make.
- When I first started making biscuits, I had much better luck when I froze and then grated the butter on the large holes of a box grater (a technique I learned from a JWU student actually – thank you Juan Jose Rodriguez DeLaRosa!!) Once I got better at them, I was able to have success with chopped pieces of butter – still frozen works best! Most people swear by the chopped butter as they seem to create better layers in the final product. I find both absolutely delicious, so if you are just starting out – try both ways and see what works best for you!
- Another choice – I am a purist about not re-rolling scraps, so while I do love a good round biscuit, I won’t re-roll the extra dough, but just bake them off in their weird crescent leftover shapes as a way to test for doneness – or little snacks – not pretty but delicious (prep cooks will understand my love for a scoobie snack!) OR I have started just cutting my biscuits into square shapes with my metal bench scraper – no waste at all!
- Last choice – do you like a crispy outside edge or a softer one? If you like the softer version, then place the biscuits very close – almost touching – “hugged up” as my mentor, Susan Spicer used to tell me 😉 If you prefer them more crispy, then place them further apart on the pan so the convected air can circulate around them.
- Okay, just kidding – one more choice – I really like this salted agave butter on my biscuits, but you can use honey butter, plain salted butter, orange-honey butter with zest and juice, Old Bay butter – you get the message – do what you like for your end goal on this day! But definitely brush them with some kind of melted butter as a final step.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
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