Despite growing up in the south, biscuits were not something we ever really had at home. My mom is from up north so baking biscuits from scratch wasn’t part of her kitchen repertoire and therefore not part of mine. Instead, I grew up with biscuits being a special treat enjoyed at church potluck lunches, dinners and family friends houses, or down-home country cooking places. I always had it in my head that biscuits were a lot of work or difficult to make. So one day I decided that if I was going to consider myself a true southern cook, I needed to master the biscuit. So, off I went researching and testing various recipes because if I was going to bake biscuits from scratch, I was going to make sure they were some damn good biscuits.  Let me tell you, just like pimento cheese, people really have strong feelings about how to make the best biscuit – brands of flour they are loyal to, shortening vs. butter, rolling instead of layering the dough, etc. Somewhere along the way of recipe testing and combining different versions, I formed my own opinions and my own recipe. I’m not going to claim these are the best biscuits out there (because I’ve had some biscuits that were a religious experience) but these are buttery, have a good balance of fluff, chew, and crunch, and recipe is pretty fool-proof.

The keys to this recipe are using super fine flour, good quality buttermilk and butter, keeping your ingredients COLD, using the food processor to avoiding warming up the cold ingredients, and folding the dough instead of rolling it out. If you really want to get anal about it, chill your mixing bowl and food processor bowl and blade. I personally don’t want to spend the time waiting around when I could be eating biscuits.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups of super fine all-purpose flour (White Lily preferred), plus more for dusting
1 stick of good quality, unsalted butter, chilled and cubed, with 1 tablespoon reserved
2 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of cold buttermilk

Directions

In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, powder, soda, salt, and cold butter cubes and pulse just until fine crumbs form. Do not pulse too much as the butter will warm up.

In a large mixing bowl, dump out the buttery flour crumbs and slowly pour in the buttermilk. Lightly with your fingers, mix just until dough comes together. The dough should be fairly wet and sticky but not too loose. If it appears too dry, add a splash or two of buttermilk. Likewise, if it is too wet, add a light sprinkle of two of flour but keep in mind you will be adding more flour as you form your biscuits.

Remove wet dough from the food processor and turn out onto a well floured surface.

Gently pat (do not roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Fold the dough on itself several times, then gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick. Use a round biscuit cutter to cut into rounds. You can gently combine the scraps together and make a few more, but they will not be anywhere near as light and fluffy as the first ones. There should be about 8-10 biscuits depending on the size of the cutter you use. Place the biscuits on a parchment-lined cookie sheet so that they are close but not touching each other in order for them to rise.

Brush the tops of the biscuits lightly with the 1 tablespoon of melted butter. Sprinkle with a little bit of additional salt and sugar if desired.

Bake for 10 minutes in a 425 degree oven then remove them from the oven and separate the biscuits even further and put them back in the oven for an additional 2-5 minutes so that the sides have a chance to brown.

Serve hot with your favorite jam or spread or just eat them by themselves! They are that good!