Approved by taste buds, but not by cardiologists: Buttermilk Biscuits

I have been trying for some time to find a biscuit recipe that comes out flaky and light. I am getting there, but I will always compare my biscuits to the ones we had in a little café when visiting Memphis .

This recipe is the result of many attempts to come up with a really good biscuit. Thank goodness Walt is a willing test subject for my cooking experiments!

The same sort of features that make a flaky pie crust, like I covered in this post, apply to flaky biscuits.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Serves 12

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cake flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup butter, cold
• ⅔ to ¾ cup buttermilk
• all-purpose flour for folding
• 2 to 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix together the flour, baking powder, cream of tartar, sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until the mix looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in the buttermilk until the dough holds together. It will be slightly sticky.

I cut the cold butter into chunks and drop them into the dry ingredients. I then use a pastry bender to get a coarse mix.

Line a square or round cake with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 425°.

Put some flour on a cookie sheet. Take half of the dough and pat it into a rectangle on the floured pan. Fold the rectangle in half and flatten again. Repeat 6 or seven times. Flatten it to about ¾ of an inch thick.

Pat half the dough into a rectangle, then fold it in half. repeat several times.

Cut it into 6 pieces. Dip each piece in the melted butter and put it in the parchment lined pan.  Repeat with the second half of the dough.

Cut the dough into 6 sections, then dip in the melted butter before putting in the pan.

Bake in a 425° oven for 23-26 minutes. Tops will be golden brown.

Cool for about 5 minutes. Lift the parchment paper and biscuits out of the pan to a wire rack.

This recipe works well with sausage gravy or butter and jam.

Favorite Tool

This recipe actually uses a couple of favorite tools of mine. A pastry blender is super useful and relatively common to find in a kitchen.

My other favorite tools used here is typically not found in a kitchen – a plastic car body filler spreader. They are used to put filler in small dents in cars before repainting. You can get them at auto parts stores, hardware stores, and online.

It is the sort of pinkish colored tool I use to cut the dough into sections. They come in a variety of colors and this just happens to be what I have now. I like the plastic ones as they are somewhat flexible and will not scratch surfaces. They can be used to scoop cut vegetables to drop in a pan and for working with various dough and pastry.