Light, flaky and incredibly moist buttermilk biscuits simply melt in your mouth and taste great with some jam, cranberry butter or along with your eggs for breakfast.

Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe

Preparation Time- 40 minutes
Cooking Time- 20 minutes
Total Time- 1 hour
Serves- 6

Ingredients

White All purpose Flour (480 grams)
Chilled cream cheese (1/8 cup)
Chilled buttermilk (duo cups or 240 milliliters)
Soda bicarb (four teaspoons)
Baking soda (one teaspoon)
Sugar (one teaspoon)
Salt (1.5 teaspoon)
Plain cold butter cubes (1 cup or 226 grams)

Procedure

The recipe initiates by whisking together the flour in a large bowl which eliminates the need to sift it. Now add the soda bicarb (baking powder) which raises the volume and lightens the texture of the biscuits, thus making them truly flaky. Addition of baking soda to the mixture basically has a neutralizing effect since it counterbalances the acid from the lovely buttermilk and baking powder. Use a wire whisk in round circular movements for 10-12 times to properly mix together the dry constituents and aerate and fluff them up in the process.

We are now ready to cut the butter by using a wire pastry blender/cutter or two knives. The butter and cream cheese that we are using in the recipe must be really cold (preferably placed in the freezer). This is the secret to getting great texture of the biscuits.

Keeping pressing on the butter slices and cream cheese using the pastry cutter till you get a crumbly mixture comprising of really small pieces of the fats coalesced with the flour (around five to six minutes). Butter and cream cheese help the biscuits to rise during the baking process as they melt into the flour, leaving air pockets that fill up with steam.

At this stage one could add around 135 grams of grated cheese (Mozarella and/or Cheddar), or a third of a cup of crumbled bacon, some herbs of choice (chopped rosemary, dill, thyme) or corn kernels.

Use your fingertips to make a concave depression in the middle of the crumbled mixture and pour in the chilled buttermilk a little at a time and gently mix with either a fork or a tip of a spatula till the dry ingredients are coated and combine together forming a crumbly mix. Avoid over-mixing as we want to avoid developing gluten in the flour which tends to harden the biscuits. Premium biscuits are always made by barely touching the ingredients and treating the dough with tender, loving care.

Empty the dough mixture over a kitchen board that has been lightly dusted with some flour and use a bench scraper to facilitate moving around the dough. Pat some dry flour over the slightly sticky flour and manually pat it to form a roughly rectangular shape. Now keep folding the dough by lifting sides and then overlapping and pressing them together to form an envelope shape.

Repeat this for about three to four times till the dough becomes easier to handle and then pat it till one gets about one and a quarter inch thickness all over and it can be freely moved around on one’s working surface. We are preparing big-sized biscuits for which 2.5 inches biscuit cutter or the rim of a tall glass can be used though dip it in some dry flour prior to cutting out straight-sided or sharp-edged biscuit shapes.

Place the freshly cut shapes over a pre-greased baking tray which can be brushed with some milk, melted butter, buttermilk or beaten egg prior to placing into a preheated oven set at 375 degrees and baked till slightly browned (about 18-20 minutes) . Some powdered sugar too can be sprinkled over the biscuits before baking if you prefer a sweeter taste.

Place the freshly baked, flaky buttermilk biscuits into a basket and drape with a cloth to keep them warm for serving at breakfast or dinner.