Monday, July 14, 2014

Buttermilk Biscuits

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I’ve had biscuits on my mind a lot these days. You see, I was asked again this year to be a Blog Ambassador for the Music City Food + Wine Festival (formerly the Music City Eats Festival), and they wanted me to contribute a post to their blog. The topic was of my choosing. Last year I wrote about my favorite coffee shops, and it stretched into two posts. Somehow I got it in my head to write about biscuits. While I have a plentiful breakfast tag here on the blog, with a handful of scone recipes, I’ve never posted a biscuit recipe. That’s because I have been searching, baking, testing biscuits recipes for a couple years now. I wanted to be sure when I posted a biscuit recipe, it was THE biscuit recipe. Well, I’m not sure this is the FINAL biscuit recipe, but it’s the final-for-now biscuit recipe, as it’s the one I’ve been making for over a year now.

If you already have your favorite biscuit recipe, please share with me! And be sure to head over to the Music City Food + Wine Festival blog to see my discussion about what to put on your biscuit. Perhaps I have suggestions you’ve never heard of! (Like maybe sorghum!)

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This biscuit recipe I came across via Smitten Kitchen. I find it funny that she scaled back a recipe 3/4, and I have taken to doubling it. I do a couple things different than her. First, I combine the dry ingredients and cut in the butter in the food processor (partly because I’m lazy, and because I am doubling it). Second, I never ever ever make these biscuits in the morning before eating them. NOPE. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Now that Elliott actually sleeps in until 7am or sometimes even 8am in the morning, I choose to sleep as well. What I do is make these biscuits when I have a free afternoon, or while he is napping. I often make 2 double batches back to back. I roll out the dough, and cut out all the biscuits. *I DO NOT BAKE THEM!*  Then I put them on cookie sheets and pop them into the freezer. Once they are frozen I put them in an airtight container. This way, we can have biscuits on demand whenever we want. Weekend mornings we roll out of bed, turn on the oven, walk the dog, make our coffee, and put the biscuits in. Because the biscuits are being cooked from a frozen state, I add an extra 3 minutes or so to the baking time. This gives us just enough time to fry up some country ham, or of my dad’s homemade sausage or bacon, and fry a few eggs as well.

I’m telling you, once you start making biscuits in advance & freezing them you’ll never ever go back, and you’ll always have fresh, hot, homemade biscuits ready in under 30 minutes, depending on how long it takes your oven to preheat. 😉

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Buttermilk Biscuits

Yield: 10-16 biscuits depending on size you cut out

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (to taste)
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
18 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 °F and cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in large, wide bowl. (If using food processor, pulse dry ingredients five times to combine.) Using fingertips or a pastry blender, work butter into dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. (If using food processor, add in the butter and pulse to combine, until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Then transfer to a medium bowl.) Add buttermilk and stir until large, craggy clumps form. Reach hands into bowl and knead mixture briefly until it just holds together.

Transfer dough to floured counter and pat out until 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick. Using a round cutter (2 inches for regular sized biscuits, 3 inches for large), press straight down — twisting produces less layered sides — and transfer rounds to prepared sheet, spacing two inches apart.

Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 12 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly, then serve warm.

*Don't forget, only bake as many biscuits as you need. Freeze the remaining unbaked biscuit rounds, adding 3 minutes or so to baking time. You'll thank me later.*

adapted from Smitten Kitchen, originally posted on Bon Appetit, recipe original source is Dot's Diner in Boulder, CO.

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