Buttermilk Biscuits

There’s nothing better than a homemade biscuit.  On the Sundays that I make a Pot Roast for lunch, I always make biscuits to serve with it.  They are best served warm right out of the oven.  I typically make them with buttermilk because we like the flavor, but they can also be made with regular milk if you don’t have buttermilk.

2 cups self-rising flour

1/4 cup shortening

a pinch of baking soda if using buttermilk, leave this out if using regular milk

3/4-1 cup buttermilk or regular milk

Combine flour, and baking soda in a mixing bowl.  Add shortening and cut in with a pastry blender until well blended.

Add buttermilk and stir until all the flour is incorporated and dough gathers up into a ball.  You may use more or less of the milk.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and turn it over onto itself a time or two to smooth.  Don’t work it too much or it will toughen the dough.

Pat dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness and cut with a biscuit cutter.

The trick to a nice crispy outside is to coat a baking sheet liberally with vegetable oil.  I use about a Tablespoon of oil and spread it on the surface of the baking sheet, then place biscuit on sheet with top side down first, then flip it so that both sides are coated with oil. 

Cut biscuits out of all dough, then gather up the leftover scraps and roll out again to get a couple of more biscuits.  I usually end up with a sheet of regular sized biscuits and usually one small biscuit from the scraps that we call the baby biscuit and the youngest child in the family gets that one.  My youngest is now 11 years old but she still enjoys getting the baby biscuit!

(the picture above is a triple recipe for my family, recipe listed above will make 8-10 biscuits)

When all the biscuits have been cut out, coated with oil and placed on cookie sheet, bake in a 450 degree oven on the top rack with the top rack in the highest position within the oven.

Bake until lightly browned, rotating the sheet once midway through.  It will take 15-20 minutes to bake.  Serve warm with butter, honey, jelly, gravy, etc.