Definitely Worth It.

I love tradition, but I’m not traditional. Typing those words made me realize how weird they sound. I have traditions ranging from the daily (throw my clothes on the floor, tantalizingly close to the hamper) to the yearly (woohoo, Christmas Dinner Party). Easily my favorite tradition, though, is Sunday Morning Biscuits. I enjoy the whole process, the mixing, the cutting, the baking, and especially the eating. I even enjoy the part where my daughter tries to sneak some dough while I’m not looking. Yes these biscuits do take some time to make, but eating them every Sunday and having this tradition is worth the 45 minutes it takes.

Here’s what you need.

2 CupsFlour

1 TBS + 1tsp Baking Powder

2 Tbs Sugar

1 tsp Salt

Butter-1 stick or 1/4 cup

Buttermilk-just short of one cup, about 220 ml. You can use regular milk, soymilk, watered down yogurt or thinned sour cream, just get the measurement right.

Here’s how to do it.

Preheat the oven to 425. Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

Add the Butter. If you have a pastry cutter, throw the stick of butter in the bowl and go to town, just make sure there are no big chunks, this is the preferred method because the butter gets coated well with flour and gets distributed evenly. If you don’t have a pastry cutter, or if you are allergic to pastry cutters, just cut the butter into small pea sized pieces with a knife. I have demonstrated this below. After you cut the butter, put it in the mixing bowl, cover with flour and break the pieces up as best you can then give it a little stir to coat the butter with flour.

Cut the butter.

Add the buttermilk and stir just until combined.

Please send money for a new camera.

Dump out onto your counter and smush it together and give it a quick roll with the rolling pin, it will look rough and it will fall apart, but it will come together.

Smush Nicely

Square it up. As you can see my lovely assistant Rory is using a bench knife, if you have one, use it, if you don’t, I highly recommend buying one, I use it often. You can use a scraper or improvise with some other tool also.

Its really a rectangle.

Now fold it over. I know its a mess, but really, fold it over then try to smush all the pieces back together again.

Fold

Roll it out again, square it off again, fold it over again. Do this a total of at most four but preferably three times. Don’t roll it out too thin now, it should be a little less thick than your pinky (at your nail). Here it is after three rolls and folds. Oh, and dust with flour as needed so it doesn’t stick.

Looking Good

Roll out one last time, just enough to get 6 biscuits. Mark it to check like I did below.

Mark it up.

Cut them out with a biscuit cutter or whatever you can find. I only cut 5 because I like to save the extra dough for chocolate scones. Place them on a baking sheet, no grease needed.

Five for Five

If you want more biscuits, smush the extra dough together, roll it out again, square it up, fold it over and roll out to the same thickness as before. I find the extra rolling makes these biscuits a little tougher and uneven, so I make chocolate scones out of the rest of the dough. If you don’t want the scones just put the biscuits in the oven for 13 minutes. and you’re done. If you do want scones (you do, you really do) here’s how.

Take the excess dough, smush it together, and roll it out pretty thin (too thin and you won’t be able to roll it, too thick and you won’t have as many layers. Square it off and add chocolate chips, as many or as little as you like. See below.

The Chocolate

Roll it up carefully like so. Use your scraper to lift if you need to.

Roll it up.

Smash it with your hand into a squareish log shape. Cut it into triangles (or as my lovely assistant is doing, squares).

Triangles. Squares. Whatever.

Place on the baking sheet with the biscuits and bake for 13 minutes in a 425 oven.

Willy Nilly

Remove from the oven, they should just be browning on the top. Remove from the baking sheet and serve. I like mine with honey and butter, but Beth insists on having homemade Apple Butter on hers.

Golden Brown Delicious.