Buttermilk Biscuits

On a cool fall day, what's better than a hearty bowl of soup paired with warm, fluffy, fresh-from-the-oven buttermilk biscuits? These are quick and easy to whip up for a weeknight dinner, and they're much tastier than the instant-mix versions (Bisquick, I'm looking at you).

In the interest of full disclosure, I based my biscuits on Alton Brown's recipe, not Martha's. Mr. Judge insisted that Alton has the Best. Biscuit. Recipe. Ever., and he insisted that I try his recipe first. Sorry, Martha! I'll try your recipe next time.

Technically, I used the recipe from Alton's baking book, not the recipe on the Food Network site. The recipes are similar, but slightly different.

As usual, the first step was to mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt). Alton's recipe included the unique step of using a box grater to grate the butter into the dry ingredients. He thinks this is easier than the usual method of using a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour.

Next, he recommends rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingers, until half of it is integrated with the flour, and the rest of the butter is pea-sized (or smaller).

The recipe in his baking book uses only butter, not shortening.

Next, it was time to combine the liquid ingredients. Alton's recipe calls for buttermilk and yogurt, which is kind of unusual (most biscuit recipes don't include yogurt). Apparently the yogurt adds extra moistness and a nice tang. His recipe specifically states that you cannot use fat-free yogurt, which is what I usually buy. I knew my husband had recently picked up some yogurt at the store, so I asked him what kind it was. He assured me it was whole-milk yogurt, because he would never buy skim yogurt. So, I looked in the fridge, and guess what I found?



D'oh! But instead of giving up, I decided to forge ahead with the fat-free yogurt and hope for the best. I decided if the biscuits didn't work out, I would blame the yogurt first, and my husband second.

I mixed together the liquid ingredients (buttermilk, yogurt, and one egg).

Then I added the flour mixture to the buttermilk mixture. This formed a very gloopy, lumpy batter.



I turned the batter out onto some parchment paper before kneading, because I knew this would be an extremely sticky process.

Instead of "kneading" the dough, I used Alton's suggestion of folding it three times, kind of like a tri-fold wallet. This is what it looked like after the third fold.

I flattened the dough to about a one-inch thickness, and I used a 2-inch round biscuit cutter to cut out the individual biscuits. They were very sticky, and my hands were covered with dough, so I couldn't take a good photo of them during this stage.

I placed the biscuits on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.

Twenty minutes later, I had warm, fluffy biscuits. They were moist and buttery on the inside, and crusty brown on the outside. Mmmmm yum.

This is how I like to eat them - with a nice pat of butter on top. They're also very tasty with pumpkin butter (which is how I ate them for breakfast the next day).

Alton Brown's recipe was a success, and I'm going to try Martha's recipe next time. Either way, I highly recommend making your own biscuits from scratch. The small effort involved is well worth the result.