Buttermilk Biscuits

Is there anything more perfect to go with any meal at any time of the day than a biscuit with a soft, fluffy interior, lightly crunchy, buttery exterior? I'm going with no. And I'm serious, they go with any meal. There's so many ways to eat them. Some people like them drenched in honey; some love jellies and jams; some use them to sop up gravy; some like them savory with cheese and herbs. My favorite is just a perfectly cooked buttery biscuit. It really doesn't get much better than that. Sometimes I'll have two for breakfast or bake one up to go with dinner... wait, I forgot to tell you that part, the best part. You can mix these up and fix an entire tray for your family, but what I'm going to show you here is how to prep them for freezing. Then you can bake however many you need whenever you need them. Depending on how thin you pat out the dough, you can get from 10-15 biscuits out of this recipe. I'm still working on hitting the right thickness to make consistently a dozen biscuits... maybe I'll get there one day. I found this recipe on Pinterest, Fluffy Southern Buttermilk Biscuits, but I figured out how to freeze them for individual use while maintaining quality.

3 c. all purpose flour
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup frozen unsalted butter
1 - 1 1/4 cup buttermilk
4 tsp melted salted butter

If you want to bake your biscuits now, preheat oven to 450 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper. If you're going to freeze the biscuits, ensure your baking sheet will fit in your freezer, and then line it with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

Use a cheese grater and grate frozen butter into the dry ingredients. Coat the butter in flour, and keep recoating the end you're grating. I also recommend flipping which end you grate every five or six swipes. The warmth of your hand will warm up and melt the butter as you're grating, so flipping it keeps you from warming up one end too much.

Use your hands to blend butter into flour. Again, tread lightly and use your fingertips. 

This won't take long with the grated butter. You should be able to grip the flour and butter mixture and get it to stick together after just a minute or two.

Slowly pour in 1 cup of cold buttermilk to your mixture while using a fork to blend it in. Add in the remaining buttermilk just until the crumbs are moistened. 

Dough should not be wet, but you may find there is still some flour mixture in the bowl. Gently knead dough in the bowl (no more than six or seven times) to incorporate what remains. Once dough is fully together, place it on a lightly floured surface and pat out to about 1-inch thickness.

Use a 2-inch cutter (fluted or plain) to cut biscuits.

Place biscuits about 2 inches apart on baking sheet in you're planning on baking them now. Place close together, but not touching, if you're planning on freezing them. My picture below is for freezing them.

Melt butter in small dish, and using a pastry brush, cover each biscuit liberally.

If baking now, bake for 13-15 minutes. When perfectly golden brown and puffed, remove from the oven and brush with additional butter.

If you're not baking them now, place in the freezer at least an hour until they are frozen and set. Then place in a bag and enjoy at your leisure.

When you're ready to bake some up, put what you want on your tray (if you want easy clean up, use parchment or aluminum foil underneath), and then starting with a cold oven, put them in and THEN turn the oven on to 400 degrees.

Bake 20-25 minutes until biscuits are golden brown and puffed. If you want to brush them with more butter, go ahead, but they're pretty darn good just as they are. Enjoy them however you prefer!