March 20, 2008

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Buttermilk Biscuits

I grew up loving my mother's buttermilk biscuits. She made us huge breakfasts every morning before school. She made things like homemade hash browns, pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs however we liked them... and every Saturday (and occasionally during the week) she'd make biscuits. It still amazes me that she managed to do all that while rousing us and getting ready for work. But fresh biscuits on a weekday morning? Years later, I asked for her recipe, and so now it makes a lot more sense. It has to be the easiest baking recipe I've ever seen.

But since I was making biscuits for the party, and had some free time, I figured I'd try another recipe. Mom's were great, but they were sometimes a bit dry, and didn't really rise as much as would be ideal. So I also tried Cook's Illustrated's recipe for buttermilk biscuits. After trying them both fresh, warm, right out of the oven, I can say that Mom's recipe has definitely been beaten. The CI biscuits come out fluffier, more moist, and very buttery. On the other hand, Mom's can't be beaten for speed and ease. So I'm posting both.

Mom's Easy Buttermilk Biscuits

  • 2 cups (10 oz) self-rising flour
  • 3/4 cup shortening
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk

Prepare a heavy baking pan (or preferably, a seasoned cast iron skillet) by coating with additional shortening. In a large bowl, cut the shortening into the flour until it's the size of small peas. Add the buttermilk to the flour mixture, gently kneading until it forms a large ball. Don't overmix or you'll have hard biscuits. Just mix until a ball is kinda sorta formed.

With floured hands, break off pieces from the dough, about the size of your palm, patting into rough balls. Place each one into the prepared pan. They'll end up expanding into each other, but that's okay. It's fine if they're touching each other a bit, but try to spread them out in the pan.

Bake at 450 Fahrenheit until a nice brown top appears. Makes six or so huge biscuits.


Cook's Illustrated "Tall And Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits"

Dough

  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
  • 1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon table salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold), cut into 1/4-inch cubes
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk cold, preferably low-fat

To Form and Finish Biscuits

  • 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (5 ounces), distributed in rimmed baking sheet
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 500 degrees. Spray 9-inch round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside. Generously spray inside and outside of 1/4 cup dry measure with nonstick cooking spray.

  2. For the dough: In food processor, pulse flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda to combine, about six 1-second pulses. Scatter butter cubes evenly over dry ingredients; pulse until mixture resembles pebbly, coarse cornmeal, eight to ten 1-second pulses. Transfer mixture to medium bowl. Add buttermilk to dry ingredients and stir with rubber spatula until just incorporated (dough will be very wet and slightly lumpy).

  3. To form and bake biscuits: Using 1/4 cup dry measure and working quickly, scoop level amount of dough; drop dough from measuring cup into flour on baking sheet (if dough sticks to cup, use small spoon to pull it free). Repeat with remaining dough, forming 12 evenly sized mounds. Dust tops of each piece of dough with flour from baking sheet. With floured hands, gently pick up piece of dough and coat with flour; gently shape dough into rough ball, shake off excess flour, and place in prepared cake pan. Repeat with remaining dough, arranging 9 rounds around perimeter of cake pan and 3 in center. Brush rounds with hot melted butter, taking care not to flatten them. Bake 5 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 450 degrees; continue to bake until biscuits are deep golden brown, about 15 minutes longer. Cool in pan 2 minutes, then invert biscuits from pan onto clean kitchen towel; turn biscuits right-side up and break apart. Cool 5 minutes longer and serve.

Posted by Barzelay at March 20, 2008 3:07 AM | Comments (7) | Baking


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I also have made those CI biscuits before and they are quite delicious. It has come to be my favorite online resource for recipes.

an interesting post in the future perhaps may be a short cataloging of your favorite food blogs/resources

Posted by: Adam at March 20, 2008 9:15 AM


Nice skillet, Barzelay.
I triple seasoned a new Dutch Oven last weekend, I'll have to try making these biscuits outside.

Posted by: Darroc at March 20, 2008 10:32 AM


Adam, eventually, the Links link at the top should be such a list. I've just been lazy populating the list.

Darroc, nice. What do you season yours with? Standard vegetable oil, or more exotic stuff? I think these would work outside, but you're not likely to get the browned tops (no big loss). Oh, and I forgot to mention above that I don't think the Cook's Illustrated recipe is ideal, either. They lack some of the flakiness of Mom's. I think a ratio of about 2/3 butter and 1/3 shortening would give the best results. But that's yours to play with. Oh, and the best results would probably also involve lard.

Posted by: Barzelay at March 20, 2008 12:34 PM


I just use regular old vegetable oil, but occasionally use olive oil with real hot coals for an extra hard seasoning, especially on cast iron thats gonna get some abuse.

I think you could get browned tops, when you bake outside with a dutch oven you load most of the heat on the lid, and adding 5-6 more coals during the last 10 to 15 minutes will help brown things. I'll have to try it and see.

Posted by: Darroc at March 20, 2008 1:40 PM


Thanks for this recipe. I've been wanting to make buttermilk biscuits for the last 3 weeks, ever since I saw a rerun of a Good Eats episode and got my order of Benton's Country Ham and Bacon in (have you tried this "slice" of heaven yet?).

Last night after I mixed the dry and hand incorporated some butter, I went to pour in the buttermilk but it had turned solid. What the? Talk about a downer.

Posted by: sygyzy at March 20, 2008 2:00 PM


Darroc, I don't think these would bake the same at all if they had a lid on them. The CI recipe, in particular, has a very high liquid content, and I would think that a lot of it needs to evaporate out. But you have a lot more experience than me with cooking outside. Anyway, I actually need to re-season my cast iron pan. I keep burning things in it, or else one of my roommates scours it with soap. I never thought about seasoning it multiple times. I think that would work much better for me.

Sygyzy, you know the solids in buttermilk clump up over time, way before the buttermilk goes bad. Usually it looks completely solid at the top of the bottle, but then it's liquid at the bottom. Just shake it up, vigorously, before using and it'll be fine (assuming you haven't had it for more than a month or so).

Posted by: Barzelay at March 20, 2008 2:19 PM


Gave it another try, this time using the Cook's Illustrated recipe you posted. Turned out perfect in every biscuit-y way (smell, tasted, outside crunchiness), EXCEPT for inside texture. It was not flaky at all. I wonder what I did wrong.

Posted by: sygyzy at March 26, 2008 2:02 PM

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