Heartbreakingly Good Homemade Biscuit Recipe
Every week, we spotlight a different food blogger who’s shaking up the blogosphere with tempting recipes and knockout photography. Below, Beth Kirby of Local Milk shares her tried-and-true recipe for homemade biscuits, perfect for jazzing up a casual brunch at home.
Photo: Beth Kirby
This is my favorite recipe. It’s the one I make the most often, and the one I could make in my sleep (if I had a predisposition toward somnambulant baking).
This recipe is a work of art. But it isn’t hard, and it doesn’t take long. And with these biscuits, you can break hearts and best foes and bend the fabric of space time. I may be overstating their abilities, but I might not.
Fluffy, Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits From Scratch
2 cups (250 grams) unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup (56 grams or ½ stick) unsalted butter, cut into dice
Scant cup (230 grams) real buttermilk
Heat oven to 425°F. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Using your fingers, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it’s crumbly and no pieces larger than a pea remain.
Pour in the buttermilk. Stir just until all the dry bits are incorporated, no longer. It should be sticky and shaggy. Not dry, not wet.
Lightly flour a work surface and turn your dough out onto it. Lightly flour the top of your dough, and use your hands to pat it out into a rectangle a little more than an inch thick. Fold that rectangle onto itself toward you, then rotate the dough counter clockwise and roll it out gently using a wooden rolling pin. Be careful to not crush the outer edges and destroy your layers. It’s important to roll very gently. Repeat the folding and rolling two more times. (Refer to this recipe for more description of folding.)
Roll the dough out to about an inch thickness, and using a floured biscuit cutter, cut your biscuits. (Be sure to not twist your cutter, it will seal the edges and they won’t rise as well.) Gently gather and re-roll the scraps until the dough is used up.
Placing the cut biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet so that they just touch one another. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of your biscuits, the weather, and your oven. They should be golden brown and fluffy throughout. Enjoy warm with all manner or honey, sausage, jams, ham, and, of course, good butter.
More brunch standbys:
The Bagel Egg in a Hole, the Best Thing Since Bagels and Eggs
Nutella-Stuffed Pumpkin French Toast Is Your New Best Friend
French Toast with Orange Yogurt from ‘NOPI’
