Biscuits

I have been looking for years for a recipe that mimics the biscuits of my time in the south. They are cake-like but still flaky enough to split without a knife. If you have ever eaten at a Cracker Barrel, you know what I mean! This post is not a true test of as pinned idea... as NONE I tried gave the results I was looking for! After I had a lightening strike of brilliance, I decided to apply a cookie recipe trick to making biscuits. Using shortening or margarine creates soft, fluffy cookies. Using butter creates tasty, flaky cookies. If you use 50/50 butter/margarine in making cookies you get great flavor and soft, flaky texture. Guess what???? This works for biscuits too! This recipe makes 12 biscuits... Unless you are baking for 3 people make 2 batches! These freeze well, last 24 hours in airtight bag, and make banging breakfast sandwiches the next day as well!

 Cut up 1/4 c of butter flavored Crisco and 1/4 c of butter into half inch cubes. Smaller pieces like this work best as it takes less blending and therefore butter stays cold until it gets in the oven. Cold butter equals air pockets of goodness!

 Use this blade on food processor. You could use a pastry blender or even crisscross knives in a bowl but this way takes less than 45 seconds!

 Into the blender add.... 1 tablespoon of baking powder

 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 2 cups of all purpose flour

 Press the pulse button about 12 times holding for 1 second each time. Your mixture will look like the above photo!

 Dump one cup of milk on top of the blended mixture. Hit pulse again for about 12 times for 1 second each.

 Now your dough looks like this above picture!

Use wet of floured hands to wipe dough out onto a VERY well floured surface. The dough will be wet and STICKY. Knead 10-15 times until it looks like the ball below!

Now we will make the fluffy layers! Flatten the ball out with your hands. 

Fold in half.

Then flatten out again with your hands. 

Fold in half again and flatten out with your hands twice more. Each time the dough gets tighter and will flatten out less. It will look like the dough below.  Keep lifting the dough to be sure there is flour beneath it!

 Roll out with a rolling pin until 1 inch thick. You could make it thinner and get more biscuits but they will be short and tougher!

 TIP: use a sharp metal cutter! Press straight down and do not twist!  A dull cutter and twisting will ruin all the work you just did folding. Your biscuits will still be tasty but they won't rise evenly.

You should be able to cut 6 biscuits out of your first rollout. 

Squish the dough back together but mess with it as little as possible! 

Reroll the dough to the 1 inch thickness and cut more biscuits. You should be able to get 3 biscuits out of this rollout. Repeat this step to get 2 more out of this rollout. Repeat this step to get 1 more out of the last rollout.These last 3 will not be pretty but they will be tasty! Plus why waste dough!

 They do not spread out much so you can place 12 on one cookie sheet! Place in preheated 450 degree F oven.

Bake for 12 minutes until just beginning to turn tan in color.

I like mine best split in half and topped with soft salted butter and a drizzle of honey!

To make biscuits for strawberry shortcake, add 1 Tablespoon of sugar in with the flour before blending. Then before baking sprinkle a little sugar on top of each biscuit... the goodness never ends!