Biscuits are one of my most favorite foods in the whole world. I've been making drop biscuits for years, but this morning I finally tried out another biscuit recipe from my sister Maria that uses rolled out dough (rolled with your hands) and biscuit cutters. These two recipes are very similar but this one uses cold butter and the drop biscuits use melted butter. These were so good and easy to make!
Since I'm not a morning person, I mixed the dry ingredients the night before and set up my pastry board and everything I would need in the morning to make it even easier to get these in the oven quickly. I also cut the frozen butter with a box grater and then froze it in a plastic bag. All I had to do this morning was mix the butter in with the dry ingredients, add the milk, and cut the biscuits with my biscuit cutter. I made scrambled eggs while the biscuits were in the oven and my boys loved making themselves egg biscuits.
These biscuits were so good - the only thing I'll do differently next time is make a double recipe!
Easy Homemade Biscuits
Recipe courtesy “Sugar Spun Run” Blog
2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold (85g), unsalted European butter is ideal, but not required
¾ cup whole milk (177ml) buttermilk or 2% milk will also work
For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.
Preheat oven to 425° and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Set aside.
Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.
Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or (preferred) use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir.
Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough).
Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.
Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough.
Use your hands (do not use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2¾" round biscuit cutter with flour.
Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough (do not twist it) and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet.
Repeat until you have gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than ½" apart on baking sheet.
Once you have gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.
Bake at 425° for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown.
If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm and enjoy.
Yield: 6 biscuits.
