Southern Biscuits
| 280 g (2 cups) |
flour, self-rising |
| 4 teaspoons |
baking powder |
| 1/4 teaspoon |
baking soda |
| 3/4 teaspoon |
salt |
| 4 tablespoons |
butter |
| 24 g (2 tablespoons) |
shortening |
| 1 1/8 cup |
buttermilk, chilled |
Procedures
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees..
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- By now, have your floured surface ready.
- Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.)
- Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk.
- Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
- Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times.
- Flatten dough to about 3/4 inch.
- Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter (though I favor one a little larger), being sure to push straight down through the dough.
- Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. If they have something to touch on their sides, they'll grow up instead of out.
- Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)
- Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.
Based largely on recipe by Alton Brown
Show: Good Eats; Episode: The Dough Also Rises
In Alton's "Good Eats Reloaded" shows, he makes some alterations to his original Biscuit show. I'll work on that recipe here: BiscuitsSouthern2