Buttermilk Biscuits

As some of you know, I love the south, especially its food.


















Of all of the southern breakfast food options, I love biscuits the most. Gravy is optional when I have good biscuits.


















I'm used to making drop biscuits from Mr. Food's Simple Southern Favorites, but that recipe involves self-rising flour - something I'm currently out of. I used to make a half-batch of them fairly frequently, but I haven't bothered to get the flour since we moved here.


















Then on Thursday I was skimming my blogs for fun recipes and came upon a cream biscuit recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I wanted to make it, but I'm also out of cream (and I'm trying to stay out of it for a while, if you know what I mean). On the page where she listed those biscuits, she also posted links so similar recipes, including the one I'm about to post right here.


















I can't believe how much these look and taste like Pillsbury biscuits (except, you know, better). They'd go well along side a soup, chili, or as the basis of a breakfast sandwich. They even naturally split open like the Pillsbury ones so they're easy to spread with jam.






















I made these while John went to the final meeting for his class on queer and feminist theory. His friends in that class have made fun of him for praising my baking because it reinforces our gender roles. I told him to let them know that I made biscuits while he was hard at work, out of my strong desire to be heteronormative, as they say.


Buttermilk Biscuits
from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 12 servings.*

3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar (originally recipe calls for 2 tablespoons)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/4 cup minced fresh chives***
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425°F. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Using fingertips, rub 3/4 cup chilled butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in chives. Add buttermilk and stir until evenly moistened. Using 1/4 cup dough for each biscuit, drop biscuits onto baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart.** Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 15 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm.

* I rolled it out on well-floured counter and cut them with a 3″ biscuit-cutter. Take care to handle the dough as little as humanly possible, so not to warm or soften it too much.

**I found it actually made more like 15.

***I omitted these, but I imagine they'd taste pretty good.