Buttermilk Biscuits

     Recently I feel like I have been loosing my baking touch. I took a bit of a hiatus in the new year to recover from my Christmas cookie coma and for some reason I just haven't come back all the way. My cakes are sticking to their pans, my muffins are burning, and even my dinner recipes are turning out not quite what intended. So, of course, this was the time I decided to tackle a recipe I have been spending years to figure out with little to no success: biscuits. For some reason they tend to end up too dry, too dense, absolute rocks, or tasting like straight baking powder. Whether it's a recipe I've written or a tried and true one from a friend, they are just not working! That is, until today. I am happy to report that I have finally cracked the biscuit code and, using this recipe, I can make the perfect fluffy flaky biscuit every single time. 

    I discovered that the main mistake I was making came to the mixing part. First, I mix together my flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. This can be mixed as much as you see fit. After that is when it gets a little tricky. Somehow I need to mix in my butter, cream, and buttermilk, without over mixing, but also making sure the biscuits actually hold together. The way I can most consistently do this is once my dry ingredients are combined, I take my butter out of the fridge and quickly cube it up and throw it into my mixer to combine just until the butter chunks are all coated in flour mixture. Then, I dump in my buttermilk and cream at the same time and let that mix just until everything starts to come together into a dough. 

    At this point time is of the essence because I want to keep that butter as cold as possible until my biscuits are in the oven. I quickly dump my dough out onto the counter and use either my hands or the back of a couple of wood spoons to press the dough into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle, fold it over, and press it down again. Once the dough is shaped, I use a circle cookie cutter or a biscuit cutter to cut out 12 biscuits. This will require me to reshape the dough scraps a few times but if I'm careful even the last few turn out nice and fluffy. 

    Once it's all cut out, I place my biscuits on a lined baking sheet and bake them at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about 12 minutes. I know theyre done with the tops are golden brown but the sides are still pretty pale and you can see all the gorgeous layers created by the butter. As soon as my biscuits are out of the oven, I brush butter on the tops of each one for added richness and enjoy them warm or at room temperature. My favorite way to use these is to make venison biscuits and gravy but they are also stellar made into breakfast sandwiches or eaten plain with a little butter and honey. How do you like to eat your biscuits? 

    What did you think of this recipe? Leave a comment below!