My New Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits

Can you believe this weather?  I'm glad these were baked last week, because it may be too hot to turn on the oven this week.  We've had highs in the 70s, and Thursday is supposed to be 83.  Beach, here I come!  And yet, Joe and I are such fans of these biscuits, we may turn on the oven just for them.  I've tried various biscuit recipes before, but these have everything I want.  You can take them the savory route with cheese or ham, or the sweet route with jam -- peach ginger here.  But they're so good, I like them best without any add-ons.

The best part is how light and fluffy they are.  I'm not sure whether to credit the recipe or the use of pastry flour -- I'm going to say it's the two combined.  The recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but I used pastry flour (rather, King Arthur's Perfect Pastry Blend, which falls somewhere between all-purpose and pastry flours) to make them extra tender.  They didn't come out like the perfect hockey puck shapes in the cookbook photo, but I realized hockey puck shapes were overrated when I bit into flaky, soft, buttery layers.

Making Biscuits for Baby: Peach Shortcakes

These fluffy, buttery shortcakes are filled with peaches and cream with a dash of cinnamon, perfect for the summer.  I had planned and looked forward to doing a recipe like this earlier, eagerly anticipating peach season.  But a couple of weeks ago our cat, Baby, was struck with a sudden illness and we lost him very shortly after.  His suffering was heartbreaking.  After losing him, I barely slept and had no appetite whatsoever, both of which could not be more unlike myself.  I cried.  A lot.

Baby was the cat who thought he was a person, and had a big personality by turns loving, inquisitive, even bossy.  My furry BFF.  I missed falling asleep and waking with him, having him insist on sharing my seat at the table, greeting me when I came home, petting his soft fur, looking into his sweet face.  His little brother, Shnooky, has been a comfort to us.  (Disclaimer: I didn't name them, but their names are very fitting.)

Like many cats, Baby would use his claws to knead beds and blankets.  My friend Bill once told me, "Do you know what they call cats doing that in the South?  Making biscuits."  And when I finally regained some appetite for food and life, I knew I wanted to make this recipe.  So this post is for you, buddy, and nine years of beautiful friendship.  I will always miss you more than I can say.

This biscuit recipe is super-easy, and it advises you to handle the dough as little as possible for the softest biscuits.  But that's not my style.  Instead of just scooping the dough onto baking sheets, I rolled out the dough and cut out biscuits with a scalloped cutter.  Much prettier.  At top, the unbaked rounds, and above, golden puffed-up goodness.

While they're still warm, split them open and top the bottom half with sweetened whipped cream and peaches and some ground cinnamon.  You might even want to enjoy it in the outdoors.

This post was linked up with Sweets for a Saturday.

Sweet Potato Biscuits with Cinnamon Honey Butter

Photo updated November 2012

This post is really late -- I meant to have it up before Thanksgiving!  But then I went to New York and taught Mom how to make the Sweet Potato Biscuits in a recipe swap, and she taught me to make Chinese Shrimp-Stuffed Eggplant.  And right after that was the baby shower for my sis.  Then Thanksgiving happened, and I cooked for two days.  So I'm finally taking a breather to tell you about what are now my most favorite biscuits I've ever made.  And don't skimp on that Cinnamon Honey Butter!  It didn't sound like my thing, but it's dangerously good.  They made another appearance on Thanksgiving morning, and again at the dinner table.

But before that I was exhausted with making these shower lollipops and pink velvet cupcakes.  From top left: The cupcakes are easy enough, if *ahem* your sister would only stock her kitchen with a mixer, whisk, or dry measuring cups; my twin sis with another prego friend; everyone loved the "Bun in the Oven" candles, which came in a box that looked like a stove/oven and smelled good enough to eat; and making these chocolate and pink white chocolate lollipops were easy enough, except making dozens will keep you up til 3 a.m., as we discovered.

Back to the biscuits.  I was getting obsessive about finding the right recipe.  I didn't want a fussy recipe that called for yeast and required waiting for rises.  Drop biscuits would give me misshapen lumps.  I wanted biscuits -- really tall, crisp on the outside, and soft on the inside.  I was drawn to this recipe because the sweet potatoes are flecked throughout the dough, rather than being one dark shade of orangey-brown.  And they smell really darn good.

I didn't have any self-rising flour, so I used a substitution (see the recipe), and it worked perfectly.  The dough will be sticky and have the texture of cottage cheese, but don't overwork it.

I did have reservations about using melted butter when you always hear that the secret to flaky biscuits is cold ingredients.  So I made the recipe as directed, but stashed the cut-out biscuits in the freezer for 20 minutes before baking, for some insurance.  They came out nice and tall.  No flat hockey pucks here.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Cheese & Chives

Forget that recipe I blogged over the summer. These are easier and more flavorful. They're delicious served warm, especially in the winter. Here I substituted Monterey Jack for white cheddar because it's what I had in the fridge again, and added chives because . . . well, why not?

Buttermilk Biscuits from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tbs plus 1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1¾ cups buttermilk, plus more for brushing

Preheat the oven to 375°. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Using a pastry blender (I used a food processor), cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining.

Pour in the buttermilk; using a rubber spatula, fold buttermilk into the dough, working in all directions and incorporating crumbs at the bottom of the bowl, until the dough just comes together. The dough will be slightly sticky; do not overmix.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. With floured fingers, gently pat the dough into a round about 1 inch thick, pressing in any loose bits. Do not overwork the dough. Use a floured 2¼-inch round biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits as close together as possible. (Use one cut edge as the edge for the next biscuit.)

Place the biscuits about 1½ inches apart on an unlined baking sheet. Generously brush the tops of the biscuits with buttermilk. Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the biscuits are golden and flecked with brown spots, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool.


Cheddar Biscuits Variation. Add 3 cups (9 ounces) grated sharp cheddar cheese to the flour mixture after the butter has been cut in. Proceed with the recipe.

Back to Baking: Buttermilk Biscuits

So the weather cooled down a bit today, and I was eager to use my oven again. I've been grilling outside and using my ice cream maker to make more frozen yogurt, but avoiding baking because the heat just gets unbearable. This recipe is from Rose Levy Berenbaum, and I used the more reliable weight measurements.

Weight	Volume	Ingredients
3 oz	6 tbs	cold, unsalted butter
6.5 oz	1 1/4 cups	Bleached all-purpose flour
2.3 oz	2/3 cup	Cake flour
.5 oz	1 tbs	Baking powder
	1 tsp	Salt
1.3 oz	3 tbs	Sugar
1.3 oz		2 Large eggs, hard-cooked, yolks only
6.3 oz	3/4 cup	Buttermilk or heavy cream (I used buttermilk)

You'll need a baking sheet plus a cushioned baking sheet OR 2 baking sheets, one on top of the other, lined with Silpat or parchment. You'll also need a baking stone (like a pizza stone) or a baking sheet.

Cut the butter and chill it. Place the oven rack at the middle level and put the stone or baking sheet on it. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. If White Lily self-rising flour is sold in your area, you can use 10 oz OR 2 cups of that, and omit the flours, baking powder, and salt in the chart above. Add the butter, and use your fingertips to press it into the flour until you get pieces that resemble coarse meal. Press the egg yolk through a fine strainer into the flour mixture, and whisk to distribute them evenly. Stir in the buttermilk, just until the flour is moistened and the dough starts to come together. Knead it on a lightly floured counter, and roll it 3/4 inch thick.

Dip a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter or cookie cutter into a dish of flour before each cut (helps it not stick) and cut through the dough, lifting without twisting for maximum rise. Knead any leftover dough scraps and roll them out, repeating the process until you've used them all up. Place them an inch apart.

Place your baking sheet(s) on the hot baking stone or baking sheet, raise the temperature to 400 degrees, and bake for 5 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 375 degrees and bake 10 to 15 minutes more or until golden (an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center should say 200 degrees). The recipe yielded 12 biscuits for me.

I have to confess I used my food processor to make the dough up to this point, instead of a pastry cutter or mushing anything by hand. It's just faster, and I whizzed the hard-boiled yolks in the food processor, too. Don't they look like lemon zest?


The recipe doesn't call for it, but I snipped in some chives from my herb box for half the biscuits. Why not?

For the other half, I mixed together a teaspoon of paprika with a dash of cayenne pepper, and kneaded some of that mixture into the dough, and use the remainder of the mixture to sprinkle on the tops.


It helps to cut your biscuits real close to each other, to minimize the necessity of re-rolling the dough.