Biscuits and gravy are a Saturday morning staple at my house. Sure, there are pancakes, and waffles, and French toast….but biscuits and gravy are the standard, and we probably make those 2 or 3 out of every 4 Saturdays. Sometimes we eat them for dinner, too. The point is….we love biscuits. What’s not to love?
Last May, I posted a recipe for biscuits for one. Well, here’s my “biscuits for 2 or 3″ recipe. This recipe goes along with an upcoming post that necessitated gigantic (3”) biscuits; usually I make more “medium” (2″) biscuits. Anyway….here goes nothing.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have stoneware, put your favorite pan in the oven. I use my mini bar pan; it’s perfect for a tiny batch of biscuits.
Measure one cup of white whole wheat flour into a bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. Alternately, you could use self-rising flour, or use white all-purpose flour plus the baking powder, salt, and baking soda. You know KA white whole wheat is my go-to, though. Stir it all together with a fork.
Cut 3 tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter into cubes. Using your fingertips or a pastry blender, rub the butter into the flour until no large chunks remain and the flour/butter mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Measure half a cup of buttermilk (or, if you don’t have buttermilk, before you get started with the rest of the recipe, measure just under half a cup of milk and then fill it up to 1/2 cup with plain old white vinegar. This will curdle the milk and give a buttermilk quality). Pour most of the buttermilk/milk into the flour mixture and stir with a fork. If it’s too dry, add the rest of the milk. It should just be moist enough to hold together.
Turn the biscuit dough out onto a floured surface and lightly sprinkle the top with flour as well. I never bother with a rolling pin, because the more you work your biscuit dough the tougher your biscuits will be. I just kind of pat it together into one cohesive unit then press it out into a rectangle. If I am making 2-inch biscuits, I usually cut the dough into 6 roughly equal pieces then shape them using my biscuits cutter. Since I was making gigantic 3-inch biscuits today, I just cut the dough using my 3-inch cutter, then reshaped it to cut the rest. I got 4 biscuits from this dough. By the way, I don’t worry too much about the biscuits looking perfect. If you overwork biscuit dough, it will get tough. A tender and tasty biscuit is much more important than a pretty biscuit!
Place on the pan, barely touching, and place the pan in the oven for 15-18 minutes. I start with 15 then test the biscuits by pressing between 2 biscuits. If it feels too moist, I’ll put them back in the oven for a couple more minutes.
Serve with jelly, jam, gravy, bacon, etc…..or make the Southern Eggs Benedict recipe I’m posting very soon!
I forgot to get a picture of the finished biscuits before I split them!
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