With apologies to Chick-Fil-A, and Biscuit Love in Nashville, these Buttermilk Biscuits are better.
Enough chit chat. Here’s the good stuff.
Time: 1 hour
Makes: ~25 medium biscuits, ~20 large biscuits
Ingredients
4 cups White Lily™ self-rising flour
½ tsp fine salt
2 tbsp honey
½ cup Crisco™ shortening
4 tbsp (half stick) unsalted butter, room temp
1¾ cup low fat buttermilk
4 tbsp (half stick) salted butter, melted
What? I never said these were healthy; I said they were the best damn buttermilk biscuits ever of all time. Also, note the use of both salted AND unsalted butter. Keep these separate.
Directions
- Let the unsalted butter sit out at room temperature for about an hour. DO NOT MELT IT!
- Preheat your oven to 425º. That’s Fahrenheit, by the way.
- Grease a large cookie sheet with a touch of the shortening. Please don’t ruin these with some nasty lubricant that is closer to WD-40 than an edible substance.
- Now take that unsalted butter and cut it into small cubes (about 2cm long). Do the same for the shortening.
- Using a pastry cutter, mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Then add the unsalted butter cubes and the shortening cubes. Mix and cut until the mixture is crumbly.
- Pour in the buttermilk and honey. Gently mix until everything seems to be mixed in, then STOP. DO NOT… and I cannot stress this enough… DO NOT over-mix the dough. If you do, you’ll build up the gluten and then you’ll have dense little hockey pucks that are no bueno.
- If your dough seems way to wet and sticky, gently fold in a little more flour. You want it to slightly cling to your mixing bowl, but it shouldn’t latch on like a mountain climber dangling off the edge of a cliff.
- Remove the dough and place it onto a floured surface. Use a pastry scraper to fold the dough over itself about six times, flattening out to about 2cm. Like before, do not over-knead or over-roll… hockey pucks.
- Cut and place the biscuits on the greased cookie sheet so that they are touching, but not pressed together.
- Start baking for 10 minutes.
- Remove the biscuits from the oven and baste half of the salted butter.
- Bake for another 10 minutes with the pan rotated to ensure even baking.
- Remove the biscuits from the oven and baste the remainder of the salted butter.
- Continue baking for no more than 5 minutes, or until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown and slightly bubbly.
These taste fresher than any restaurant biscuit, are infinitely better than any pop-a-can biscuits, and are just… they’re just so dang good, y’all.
But don’t eat too many. That’s a lot of butter.
Revised: March 26th, 2020
Posted this on YouTube also:
Thanks, Tim…especially for sharing the recipe! Regarding the recipe:
1. *flour 🙂
2. Recipe states 2 tbsp honey, but you said — and it appeared you used — 2 tsp. I know you said it doesn’t need to be exact and you go by feel/experience, but is it more in the tsp ballpark or tbsp ballpark? That’s a big swing, 2 tsp vs. 6 tsp.
Thanks again! (BTW, I work with your brother and found this at his suggestion/share on Slack. Now he and I are debating the amount of honey!)
I normally use two tablespoons, but since honey is so sticky, in reality probably only one tablespoon actually makes it into the recipe with the rest clinging to the measuring device.
The use of honey (and the amount) is somewhat of a personal preference. Originally I used sugar, but honey has a better flavor. You could also omit it entirely, but that tiny bit of sweetness provides good balance.
Also, I can’t believe that’s been up for nearly a year with “flower” in the recipe. I need an editor.