Buttermilk Biscuits

Name: Buttermilk Biscuits
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups self-rising flour; ½ cup butter, chilled, cut into small cubes, 1 stick; 1 cup buttermilk, chilled; 1 egg, mixed with 1 tablespoon water

The Estate Bakery

Buttermilk Biscuits

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The Strategy:

This recipe forcefully dismisses complicated yeast breads in favor of the staggering simplicity of deeply cold buttermilk, intensely rich butter, and aggressive self-rising flour. By violently cutting ice-cold butter directly into the flour and briefly shocking the cut dough in a freezing chill, the biscuits violently explode upward in the screaming-hot oven, creating staggeringly tall, intensely flaky layers with a deeply golden, wildly crisp exterior.

Makes: about 12 biscuits | Total Time: 30 minutes till they’re ready

Ingredients

For dough

2 ½ cups self-rising flour
½ cup butter, chilled, cut into small cubes, 1 stick
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

To finish:

1 egg, mixed with 1 tablespoon water

Ingredients arranged: massive mounds of stark white self-rising flour, a heavy glass cruet of thick, rich buttermilk, vibrant yellow, intensely cold butter cubes, and raw eggs surrounding a heavy metal mixing bowl and a sharp silver biscuit cutter on a floured marble prep board.

Instructions

Make biscuit dough

Preheat your oven to 400°.
Add the flour to a large bowl.
Add the chilled butter.
Use a pastry cutter or 2 forks to cut the butter into the flour until it looks like small crumbs.
Pour in the buttermilk and use a fork to mix everything together.
Pour the dough onto your floured surface and knead until the dough just comes together.

Shape and bake

Pat the dough to ¾-inch thickness.
Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter dipped in flour to cut the dough. Here’s a tricky part: do not twist the cutter, ’cause if you do, your biscuits won’t rise as much as they would otherwise!
Place the biscuits onto a parchment-lined baking sheet at least 2 inches apart.
Set the baking sheet into the freezer to chill for 15 minutes.
Remove the biscuits, brush with egg wash, and bake until the tops are golden, about 15 to 18 minutes.
Serve with soft butter and sweet jam.

Thing to Note:

Thing to Note:

Thing to Note:

Southerners tend to use self-rising flour when making biscuits. This is flour with baking powder and salt already added in. If you want to use regular old all-purpose flour, that’s just fine. For every 1 cup all-purpose flour, add 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Make it “My Way”:

Flavor your biscuits with anything you like. Ground cinnamon and ginger create bold ginger biscuits. Use pumpkin pie spice to make cozy pumpkin biscuits. Black pepper and Parmesan cheese create a spicy, savory biscuit. It’s all yours to create!

A cook's floured bare hands pushing a sharp metal biscuit cutter straight down into a thick, rich slab of yellow buttermilk dough on a floured marble slab. The intensely sharp cutter is violently slicing through the cold butter chunks embedded in the thick dough.

The full recipe lives in the Vault

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The Heart of the Table

Dropping a massively heavy cast-iron skillet completely packed with wildly tall, screaming-hot, deeply golden buttermilk biscuits directly onto the table instantly commands absolute silence. The fierce, deeply intoxicating smell of hot baked butter and tangy buttermilk forces guests to eagerly reach out, aggressively pulling apart the staggeringly flaky, steaming layers with their bare hands to violently smear them with soft butter and thick, dark berry jam.

8 guests gathered tightly around a laden, sun-drenched rustic dining table, laughing loudly, pulling apart massive, flaky, screaming-hot buttermilk biscuits directly out of a heavy cast-iron skillet, smearing them with thick dark jam while drinking steaming dark coffee from large mugs in a Palm Beach Estate. A massive skillet of decadent biscuits anchors the lively coastal morning party.

Neighborly Grace

THE PRESENTATION: Do not carefully arrange these in a basket. Present the massively hot, wildly tall biscuits aggressively packed directly in the screaming-hot cast-iron skillet they baked in. Provide heavy crocks of intensely soft, deeply salted butter and staggeringly thick, violently dark blackberry jam for immediate, aggressive smearing right at the table.
THE POUR: The fiercely buttery, intensely rich notes of the hot biscuits demand a wildly robust, highly comforting pairing. A massively dark, fiercely hot chicory coffee or an incredibly bold, deeply steeped English breakfast tea perfectly slices through the heavy butter while elegantly highlighting the tangy buttermilk.
THE VIBE: Deeply cozy, highly energetic morning gatherings. This is the wildly impressive project you execute for a loud, dramatically indulgent coastal breakfast, served directly from the hot oven to the sun-drenched breakfast room, demanding an atmosphere of incredibly relaxed, deeply authentic, and fiercely unpretentious celebration.

Chef’s Recommendations

What to Split Them For: Pulled Pork
The Greens on the Plate: Sautéed Collard Greens with Fresh Ginger
The Bowl They Go With: Flu-Fightin’ Chicken Soup
The Glass Alongside: Festive Pomegranate Sparkler

The Estate Table

Build tonight’s menu around this dish.

✦ Set the Table

Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk Biscuits

The full recipe lives in the Vault

The Heart of the Table

Neighborly Grace

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