Old Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits

Y’all there was nothing more exciting to me as a child than to wake up and smell buttermilk biscuits baking in the kitchen.  Knowing that I would soon be eating these soft flaky gems covered in butter or sausage gravy.  I can remember that my favorite breakfast was biscuits and gravy, bacon, fried apples and bacon.  This was the treat that I looked forward to every time we’d visit my mamaw.   She, as you know, was my great grandmother who lived in south eastern Kentucky.  I have so many treasured memories of her and the amazing meals she would make for us.

There are as many ways to make biscuits as there are to top them.  I have tried so many through the years and I have to honestly tell you, I could not make a biscuit to save my life.  I felt like I was such a disappointment to mamaw’s memory.  That was until I went back to making them the way she did.  Cut out all that fancy stuff I was trying that I saw on the internet and got right on back to the basics.  You only need three things.  Flour, Crisco® and buttermilk.  Make sure the flour is the self rising.  I prefer White Lilly as it always gives a flaky cloud like inner biscuit and make sure your buttermilk is as cold as possible.

So here is the best I can do on giving you a recipe.  I just throw it together like mamaw and my mom did and never measure much.  So here we go.  You never know exactly how much flour you’ll need.  Depending on humidity and altitude, this mixture is going to be flexible. So for this reason I do the same thing mamaw did.  I have a big wood bowl filled with my flour.  I keep it covered with a tea towel and make the biscuits right in the bowl.

• Preheat your oven to 475

For those of you wanting exact measurements you can go by the following, it may need more or less buttermilk so start with 3/4 cup and add as you need.

• 2 cups self-rising flour + more for flouring board and cutter
• 1/4 cup Crisco® + more for greasing pan
• 3/4-1  cup buttermik

Now this is my way following Mamaw’s way.

• In your flour bowl, make a well about the depth of your fist and about twice the size in the flour.
• put about a quarter cup of Crisco® in the middle of your well.
• pour in your buttermilk
• gently, with your hand, squeeze and incorporate the Crisco into the buttermilk and then start mixing the mixture around.
• you will slowly be pulling in a bit of flour at the time into the mixture.  Keep doing this in a circle around the well and you will notice as the flour slowly adds in your biscuit batter will start coming together.
• don’t over mix.  you just want to turn and pull it together until it is just a bit sticky but is holding together.  This honestly is going to take time and practice till you find the right consistency.
• Now flour your surface lightly and pick your biscuit dough up from the bowl and place on your counter.
• Lightly flatten it out to about an inch to inch and a half.  Don’t over work the dough.
• Now you can dip your biscuit cutter in flour and cut out your biscuits.  Dip your cutter in flour between each biscuit so they don’t stick to the cutter.
• Place your biscuits in a greased cast iron skillet until filled.
• If you like you can brush them lightly with some melted butter.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes.  Everyone’s oven is going to cook a bit quicker or slower, so watch them closely the first time and take notice of the time they took for the next time.
• Remove from oven and enjoy with butter or covered in sausage gravy.