Biscuit Quest Concluded! Perfect Flaky, Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits

Oh my gosh, y’all. It’s over. Our search for the perfect biscuit is OVER. Thanks to a recipe my mama had been keeping for at least eight years from Southern Living Magazine titled “Our Best Ever Buttermilk Biscuit recipe” we now have EXACTLY the recipe–and most importantly, the technique–to make the fluffy, flaky biscuits we’ve been dreaming of. These cook beautifully RIGHT after the dough is made and also freeze for a few days and bake perfectly… truly, it seems like a dream (especially when you see the ingredient list) but we’ve actually, honest-to-goodness hit the brakfast/brunch jackpot! (but pay attention…technique is critical here.)

The PERFECT Buttermilk Biscuit (possibly the most perfect biscuit eva).

Serves 6-8

Weight Watchers Points/ serving: 12 (eeeek! I know! but it’s SO worth it)

What you need:

2 1/2 cups ~~All Purpose Flour~~ this SHOULD have said Self-Rising Flour

1/2 Cup of frozen salted butter (you can use crisco, but it does change the flavor and texture a bit)

1 Cup butter milk

yep. that’s it. just 3 ingredients.

But also you’ll need:

a cheese grater or micoplaner (a larger box grater works best, I think)

a rolling pin (for real. if you use your hands the dough gets too warm)

a biscuit/cookie cutter

What you do:

Preheat your over to 350. Then measure out your ingredients and get out your utensils. Put the butter, flour, and utensils into the freezer, and put the buttermilk in the fridge. The object is to keep the butter as cold as possible so that it doesn’t melt UNTIL it’s baking. That-apparently-is one of the things that makes the flaky, fluffy goodness we so crave! (science! I can’t handle it.)

Ok, once your grater is cold and your butter is frozen hard as a rock, grate your butter into a cold bowl. This takes awhile and honestly, I almost lost interest in this recipe grated an entire stick of butter into the cold bowl of even colder flour, but it’s the KEY to the whole thing. Don’t lose heart. Also, watch out when you get close to the end of the stick… fingers don’t like to be grated. I stopped occasionally and mixed the butter flakes into the cold flour…

Once you’ve got that, chill the whole thing again for about 3-5 minutes. (this isn’t something Southern Living tells you to do, but it was 80 degrees on CHRISTMAS EVE here in Mississippi, so i felt like it was kind of necessary.
At that point I poured in the buttermilk, but thought I needed a touch more (and SL said I wanted the dough to be sticky, so I added maybe 1/8 cup more. just eyeball it here, but the goal is sticky dough.

Form the dough into a ball and place on a cool surface to roll it out. Again, make sure you’re using a cold rolling pin so that the dough doesn’t get over-handled. I rolled it about 1/4″ thick then folded each side over making a thicker, smaller rectangle. From there, I rolled it out again to 3/4″ thick and used my grandmother’s smallest size biscuit cutter to cut out 24 biscuits. My Grandmother always said that if you folded the dough over it made it easier to cut in half… so I always do it her way. However, SL says that the folding and folding of the dough helps it all rise properly and be super flaky, so don’t skip this step either. If you find you have shards or extra ends, make a ball, roll it all out again the same way and cut some more. Sure, these might be a touch warmer, but still, they’ll be good.

I baked the fresh dough at 350 degrees on a cookie sheet for about 10-12 minutes until they were golden brown and fluffy. You can refirgerate the dough overnight and have fresh biscuits in the morning OR you can freeze it for a week or so. If you freeze the dough for later, though, you’ll want to cook the frozen biscuits for about 5-10 minutes longer depending on your over (I’ve got a pretty unpreditable one right now so I can’t really pinpoint the time. Just watch for color.) They’ll taste and look just the same, but only if you don’t thaw the dough first. I didn’t really need any ornamentation, but if you want, slather on the butter or jam, and marvel at your handiwork.

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