Southern Biscuits

This is a simple recipe for traditional Southern style biscuits. They take about an hour to make and depend on baking powder to rise. As you can see from the ingredients list, everything you’ve been told about the health factors of traditional Southern biscuits is true, between the butter, cream and buttermilk, this is a high-fat bread, but oh so good it is worth the dive into diet hell.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Flour – don’t use bread flour
  • 10 TBL butter – frozen
  • 1 TBL Baking powder
  • 1 tsp Sugar
  • 0.25 tsp Baking soda
  • 1 tsp Kosher salt
  • 6 oz. Buttermilk – chilled
  • 2 oz Heavy cream – chilled
  • Optional Flaky salt for sprinkling – can use Maldon

Process

  1. Mise en Place – measure and prepare your ingredients prior to starting.
  2. Preheat oven to 450° F (230 C). Want rack in the center of the oven.
    1. Best to use convection (fan), then temp should be 400 F. and backing time 8 – 10 mins.
  3. Grate the frozen butter using the large grater size. Put back in freezer.
  4. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, and baking soda together and sift into a large bowl. Whisk in the Kosher salt.
  5. Using a fork, stir in the chilled butter then make a well in the center. Add the buttermilk and cream, and stir until the dough begins to clump and become crumbly.
  6. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Working quickly so butter won’t warm, gently press and fold the dough 4 to 5 times (try not to knead or squeeze the dough, don’t want to open the gluten), then form it into a rectangle. Pat the dough down to a uniform thickness of ~0.75 inch.
  7. Use a 2.5″ biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits (press straight down through the dough, without twisting). Gather and pat down scraps if needed.
  8. Place the biscuits on a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill in the fridge for ~20 mins.
  9. Sprinkle each biscuit with flaky salt and bake until golden on top, 12 to 15 minutes.
  10. Let cool slightly before serving.

Note 1: You can make the dough in advance. After cutting into biscuits, freeze the tray. Once biscuits are frozen, transfer them to a plastic bag or sealed storage container for up to a month. Try to remove air from bag. The night before baking, remove from freezer, place on paper-lined pan and leave in fridge a few hours to thaw (over night). Then bake normal.

Note 2: If you use bread four, the biscuits will not be flaky. Bread flour has more protein and thus more gluten than all purpose flour and will make a denser biscuit.

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