Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk biscuits are one of my go-to recipes for just about any meal. I use this base recipe for desserts, side dishes, and to top pot pies. It's just so versatile and perfect for toppings, fillings and add-ins, it's rare I go more than a week without using it.

If your new to baking biscuits, I highly recommend a pastry blender. This nifty inexpensive kitchen tool seriously bumped my biscuit game to the next level. A pastry blender is used to cut the fat evenly into the flour which will impact the final texture of your biscuits. My Biscuits instantly became lighter and more tender once I started to use a pastry blender.

Now, that I've finished my tangent on pastry blenders, I'll move on to sharing my recipe, starting with the ingredients:

• 3 Cups Flour

• 2 Tbsp sugar

• 1 Tbsp baking powder

• 1tsp salt

• 1/3 Cup butter

• 1/3 Cup vegetable shortening

• 1 Cup buttermilk

To begin, add all the Flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and whisk 'em together.

Then add room temperature butter and shortening to the flour mix. Cut the fats in using a pastry blender until coarse crumbles are formed.

*This recipe works just as well if you'd like to substitute the shortening with either lard or more butter. I've tried both, but the biscuits just seem fluffier when I use half butter and half vegetable shortening.

Once the fat is cut in, make a well in the center of the flour mix and add all the buttermilk. Stir in the flour mix with a fork until it's mostly combined and forms a crumbly looking dough.

Fold the dough over in half, adding any dry bits to the center. Pat down a bit and fold the dough several more times until most the extra bits of loose dough and flour are incorporated. It's important not to over work the dough as this will lead to tougher biscuits. You just want to work it until the dough is mostly together so you can turn it out.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and press it until its 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. I don't use a rolling pin, I just use my palm to gently press the dough out to my desired thickness.

Use a round biscuit cutter (or cookie cutter if its tall enough to go through the dough) to cut out your biscuits. Do not twist the cutter just press straight down and give it a bit of a wiggle to loosen it from the cutter. It may help if you dip your cutter in flour before stamping each biscuit out. Gather any left over dough, combine and cut out as many biscuits as you can.

Anything left over goes to my kids to play with until the meal is ready. Sometimes they'll want to cut out shapes and bake them up in their own little pans and other times they'll just play with it until their hands get sticky.

Place the cut biscuits in an ungreased cast iron skillet and bake for about 25 minutes at 400° F. or until golden brown on top. If your not a cast iron fanatic like me then you can bake these biscuits up in a casserole dish or on cookie sheet. Once you pull them out of the oven you can brush the tops with melted butter or just leave them as they are.

Serve the biscuits hot and top 'em with whatever suits your fancy. Some of our favorite toppings are:

• butter

• cinnamon sugar

• honey

• cane syrup

• jam or jelly

• and of course sausage gravy

I hope you enjoy these biscuits as much as we do!

Until then, sweet homesteading,

Katheryn Williams

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