I am an equal-opportunity biscuit eater. I like drop biscuits and cut biscuits and KFC biscuits. Since my mom is a teacher, I grew up with new recipes coming from the teacher’s lounge every week or so. Some of them were seriously gross — I vaguely remember some sort of strange meatless patty made with mayonnaise and oatmeal. But some of them were amazing: TWA (a chicken broccoli casserole with a weird name) and these Kentucky Biscuits which are both ridiculously easy and finger-licking good. The only bizarre thing about them is that I can’t figure out where the “Kentucky” part of the name comes from, but since that state gives me bourbon, I’m ok with giving them credit for these biscuits too.
Kentucky Biscuits
via my Mom’s teacher lounge friends
2 cups all-purpose flour (No need to sift.)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking POWDER
1/2 teaspoon baking SODA
A dash of salt
1 tablespoon of white sugar
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup buttermilk
Set your oven to 400 degrees.
I like to minimize the number of bowls that I use when cooking, so I mix up the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar) right into the blender bowl and mix it up well with a wooden spoon.
Cut up your butter into smallish chunks and get the right attachment ready. (The one on the left there.)
Dump in your cubed butter and mix on medium until crumbly. This will take a while if your butter is too cold, so you’ll want it to be out of the refrigerator for at least twenty minutes or so.
Add the buttermilk (I just pour it in all at once to avoid the little-bit-at-a-time mess.) Give it a quick whirl on medium until the dough pulls away from the sides and starts to resemble a chunk around the mixer blade, like so:
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. It should easily fall off the sides of the bowl and the mixer attachment. Knead for two minutes.
Make a square-like shape, roughly 6 inches by 6 inches and place it on a cookie sheet. (Ignore the yellow stains my sheet- it’s clean, I just like turmeric on my roasted cauliflower.)
I don’t remember where I got that plastic pie slice cutter, but it’s perfect for the next task: score the square into biscuit sized sections. The original recipe specifies 12 pieces, but YOU know the right size of biscuit for YOU. ( For example: I have made 9 before with the same amount of dough and nothing bad happened except for the fact that I had delightfully large biscuits.)
Throw the sheet in the oven for fifteen minutes until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean and the biscuits are golden.
These biscuits are the very, very best when they’re hot and right out of the oven. I love them with butter and honey or jam and a nice big mug of tea. They’re not too sweet, so if you like biscuits with chili or chicken soup, these will fit right in.
