Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits

Homemade buttermilk biscuits for a biscuits and gravy dinner last night. These are no-roll biscuits.

Two cups of flour

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

4 tablespoons of butter

1 1/2 cups of buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients, cut the butter into chunks and pulse the butter into the dry mix with a food processor. Hand mix in the buttermilk. Scatter about a cup of flour on a baking sheet. Coat a 1/4 measuring cup with cooking spray. Plop 9 scoops into the flour on the baking sheet. Coat a 9 inch cake pan with cooking spray. Using your hands, roll the sticky blobs of dough in the flour and arrange them in the cake pan - they'll be touching. Bake at 500 degrees for five minutes, turn heat down to 450 and bake 15-20 minutes longer. Turn out the biscuits onto a no-lint dish towel.

Perfect for tea time, too.

Biscuits and Gravy

Homemade biscuits and gravy. I use the bulk breakfast sausage, milk, flour, water, some gravy seasoning I have on hand, and about a half of a cup of maple syrup stirred in at the end.
These biscuits are perfect for the gravy, or add a little more sugar and treat them like scones with tea. They are messy to make. They're buttermilk biscuits. I use a recipe I got from Cook's Illustrated a couple of years ago. The basic ingredients are:

2 cups flour - and more when shaping the biscuits

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tsp of salt

4 tablespoons of butter

1 and 1/2 cups of low-fat buttermilk - cold (the powdered buttermilk or the regular milk and vinegar substitution does not work in this recipe)

Use cooking spray to coat the inside of a regular cake pan. Heat the oven to 500 degrees. Put the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to mix. Then cut the butter into chunks and process with the dry ingredients a few times until it's crumbly. Pour the processed stuff into a big bowl. Mix in the buttermilk. Use cooking spray to liberally coat a 1/4 cup measuring scoop. Spread about a cup of flour on a cookie sheet (I use one with a lip around the edge to lessen the mess). Quickly scoop the 1/4 cup portions of the sticking, wet dough onto the flour. Just keep scooping until you've used it all. Then roll the blobs in the flour quickly, and snug them together in the cake pan. You can brush the tops with melted butter, if you want. Cook at 500 degrees for 5 minutes. Lower temp to 450 and cook for another 15-20 minutes, until the tops are slightly golden. Remove from oven and dump the biscuits onto a kitchen towel. Eat right away with butter, or jam, or drench them in gravy. They don't keep - you must eat them all!