Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits

With a soft and tender crumb, these Buttermilk Biscuits are full of delicious buttery flavor. Best served warm with a good slather of fine butter.

Course Biscuits

Cuisine Canadian

Keyword biscuits, buttermilk biscuits

My Island Bistro Kitchen Barbara99

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour (10 oz/282g – See Note 1 below)
1 tbsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
Scant ½ tsp baking soda
½ tbsp granulated sugar
7 tbsp cold unsalted butter (See Note 2 below), cut into ½“ cubes
1 cup cold buttermilk
1-2 tbsp buttermilk for brushing tops of biscuits (optional)

Instructions

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Assemble and measure out ingredients.
In large bowl, sift or sieve together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Whisk in the sugar.
Use a wire pastry cutter to cut the cubed butter into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles the size of peas. Quickly run fingers through the mixture several times, scooping up the bigger bits of the butter and rubbing them into flat slivers between the thumb and forefinger. It is not necessary to do this with every piece of butter – just quickly pick several at random. Ensure butter slivers are coated with the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.
Pour buttermilk, all at once, into well in center of dry ingredients. Using a Danish dough whisk or fork, mix ingredients just enough that the liquid is absorbed into the dry ingredients, no liquid remains visible in the bowl, and the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and can be roughly brought together. Dough will be soft and sticky and some floury spots may remain at this point. Transfer dough onto lightly floured work surface, gently working it just until a shaggy dough mass forms. Do not overmix.
Knead dough 8-10 times (See Note 3 below). Do not over-knead. Roll, or pat, dough to approximately ½“ – ¾“ thickness. Using a 2” floured round, sharp-edged cookie cutter, cut out biscuits, re-flouring cutter before cutting out each biscuit. Push the cutter straight down and up and out of the dough without twisting the cutter in the process. Gather dough scraps and roll or pat dough to ½” – ¾“ thickness, from which to cut remaining biscuits, being careful to work the dough no more than absolutely necessary to bring it together. Transfer biscuits to prepared baking sheet, spacing biscuits about ¾“– 1” apart. Place the baking sheet of biscuits in the refrigerator for 25-30 minutes, or the freezer for 15-20 minutes, to ensure the butter is cold before baking biscuits.
While the biscuits are chilling, position oven rack in the middle-to-upper third of oven and preheat oven to 450°F.
Remove biscuits from refrigerator or freezer and lightly brush tops of biscuits with buttermilk, if desired. Bake for apx. 14-17 minutes, or until biscuits are lightly browned on top, rotating the baking sheet partway through the baking. Remove biscuits from oven and let cool on baking sheet for 3-4 minutes then transfer to wire rack.

Recipe Notes

Yield: Apx. 14-16 biscuits (depending on thickness of dough from which biscuits are cut and the size of cutter used)

Note 1: While different sources may list 1 cup of all-purpose flour as weighing slightly more or less than the weight measures I list for this recipe, the weights I have given in this recipe are based on 1 cup of all-purpose flour (properly filled and leveled) weighing 5 ounces on my digital scales. Therefore, if 10 ounces (or 282 grams) of all-purpose flour is used, it will be the correct amount for this particular biscuit recipe.

Note 2: Biscuits may be made with salted butter in which case, reduce amount of salt called for in recipe to a scant ½ teaspoon.

Note 3: In lieu of kneading dough, the fold-over dough method may be used. Fold the dough in half over onto itself, much like folding a piece of paper. Lightly and gently press the dough down to about 1” thick. Turn the dough a half turn and repeat the folding exercise. Do this 4-5 times in total, taking care not to overhandle or overwork the dough. Pat, or roll dough, to ½“ – ¾“ thickness and cut out biscuits.