Big Biscuits
When serving soup, I like to have some sort of bread. I often make some lovely biscuits from a recipe I found here. I sometimes forgot to get the butter out to soften (okay, that happens a lot). You can grate it with a cheese grater and it works perfectly. I also double the recipe for my family of six. As written below, the recipes makes 12 biscuits.
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup milk
In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Cut in butter (or grate it!) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk just until moistened. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface; knead gently 8 to 10 times. Roll or push with your hands to 3/4-in. thickness or so; cut with a large biscuit cutter and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.
Biscuits and Gravy Tutorial
Here is a tutorial for a good ole Southern breakfast! I’ll bet you have all you need in your cupboard and refrigerator! I’ll give options on some of the ingredients, so if you haven’t had breakfast, now you know what to make!
I am no cooking expert and my husband can say ‘Amen’ (if he wasn’t so nice, but thankfully, he is), but I do enjoy cooking most of the time and especially enjoy cooking foods I love and I LOVE biscuits and gravy! 🙂
First, you will need All Purpose Flour or Self Rising Flour (you can use unbleached, organic, store brand, whatever you have on hand). If using AP flour, get out your baking powder (not soda) and salt.
Get out a medium-sized mixing bowl and also a sifter, if you have one. Now would be a great time to preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Get out a cast iron skillet (for best results) and spray it lightly with non stick spray, or use a small bit of the fat you are using in your biscuits to grease it. Do your skillet NOW, because your hands will be too gooked to do it later. Also put a handful of flour in a small bowl nearby your station.
If using AP Flour, measure out 2 cups and place in your sifter, which you have sitting inside your bowl. Add 1 tablespoonful of baking powder to your sifter and 1 teaspoonful of salt. Sift 3 ingredients together into the bowl.
Please excuse the PMS tea which seems to be in every picture. 🙂
Remove the sifter, and now you have this:
Let me interject to say if you are using Self Rising Flour (which I don’t because I can’t find any that is unbleached), then all you have to do is put 2 cups of SR flour into a bowl. If you do, please don’t use the Baking Powder or Salt. You will thank me.
Next, measure out 1/4 cup of fat. This can be coconut oil, olive oil, or for best results (now, not later…:), shortening. I have even used mayonnaise, in a crisis.
You can do one of two things here. You can put in your fat in solid form, which will cause you more work, or you can melt it and save some time. If you put it in in solid form, you will have to work it into your flour mixture until your flour mixture looks like it is little balls of flour ‘peas’. The second thing you can do, which is what I have discovered that works best for me, is to melt the fat, but do not burn it, add it and immediately add your milk (getting ahead of myself), and you will save time.
So, add your fat to your flour mixture.
I used olive oil because I was in a pinch, but for best results, use coconut oil or shortening.
Do not stir! This is very important if you have liquid fat that you do not stir yet.
Okay, now you can get out your buttermilk out of the fridge. Don’t even think about using sweet milk. If you have regular ole milk, the least you can do is add a tp of vinegar or lemon juice to make fake buttermilk, but still, you will not get good results like you do with buttermilk. While you are there at the fridge, get some sour cream. It is very important for the taste of your biscuits. May as well get the butter, too.
Add a little over 1 cup of buttermilk to your mixture. I usually just pour a tiny bit extra after pouring in my cup of buttermilk. *Edited to Add…I made them this morning and it’s about 1 & 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Add your 1 tablespoonful of sour cream.
Now here comes the fun part!
Using a fork, sort of mash the milk/fat mixture in with the flour until it is sort of worked in. You do NOT stir it in. Your biscuits will be tough tasting if you do.
Once you have the liquid sort of mixed with the flour, you get to dive in, hand first. You will probably want to take a moment to get your hands clean at this point. Even if, only for a second.
With your hands (if you’re squeamish about using your hands, get over it), squish the mixture together a few times to blend it all together. If you use a spoon or a fork, it is too ‘rough’ for the mixture—it will be tough.
When you are able to pull a small amount with your hands without it feeling too ‘liquid-y’, it is ready to roll into biscuits. *Edited to add…you may have some dry flour at the bottom that hasn’t meshed into the other ingredients. Don’t worry about mixing it in. Just leave it at the bottom of the bowl. It’s okay. 🙂
Dip your hand into the flour (that you put in the extra bowl) to coat your hands. Break off a small ball of dough (about a tennis ball size or less). Roll between your hands a couple of times, place in the skillet and pat down a bit. Do this until you have the biscuits in the skillet like so:
Place a small pat of butter in the middle of each biscuit. You will thank yourself when you take a bite.
Bake for about 17 minutes. At the end of 17 minutes, broil for 1 minute. Do this if you’re like me and just have to have those biscuits brown. Do not over bake. You will hate me if they are too hard.
Don’t bother rolling out the dough and cutting out this biscuit recipe. You are much too busy, mama, for such complication.
Plus your biscuits might make mine look bad.
Don’t forget to butter ‘em again!
*Special thanks to my husband’s deceased Great-Aunt Inez for this biscuit recipe.
Leave me a comment if you plan to try these biscuits! You’ll have to come back tomorrow for the gravy part. My day is much too filled and I’ve taken far too long. I will be busy gardening (I Must set out those broccoli, peas, and pepper plants today), laundering, cleaning, decluttering, straightening, homeschooling, and piano teaching.
Oh and take a look at this: