Recipe of the Week: Lovin' From My Oven Buttermilk Biscuits From Scratch...

To show my sweet hubby just how AWESOME that I think he is, I made him some deeeelicious made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuits. (Cutting them out in a heart shape, of course, since it's almost Valentine's day!) Is there anything better than a warm, flaky biscuit slathered with butter??? YUMMMM!!

Anyhoo...made-from-scratch biscuits are really easy to make, so if you've never tried your hand at them, then why not give my recipe a try? (Trust me, your family will thank you!) The trick to soft, flaky biscuits is not handling the dough very much. The science behind this is that when the dough is handled too much, the butter melts into the flour rather than being suspended within the flour, thus causing a tough biscuit rather than a flaky one...make sense? (Just a note...this is also true with pie dough, so if your pie dough always turns out tough, try handling it less and you'll achieve better results.)

Now, let's make some biscuits!!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, (plus more to dust the counter)

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 

•  1  Tablespoon baking powder 

• 1 teaspoon salt 

•  6  Tablespoons VERY COLD butter, (plus an additional Tablespoon of melted butter to brush over the biscuit tops before baking)

• 1 1/4  cup cold buttermilk 

Method:

Place cold butter into a mixing bowl. (I like to use a metal mixing bowl that I've chilled in the freezer for a few minutes, but a glass bowl works too.) Using a pastry cutter or fork, carefully cut up your butter.

In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add flour mixture, a little bit at a time, to the cut up butter until it is crumbly. (Here's another one of my biscuit tricks...I feel that if you use cold flour, your biscuits and/or pie dough will turn out better. When flour is on sale I stock up and I store extra bags of flour in my freezer. I just scoop some out of a bag when I am making biscuits and pie dough.)

Using a fork, stir in the cold buttermilk until mixture is just combined. The dough will be sticky, but that is okay! Dust a little flour on your counter and then rub your hands in the flour to keep the dough from sticking to them too much. Carefully turn the dough out on to your floured counter, folding and turning the dough about 4 or 5 times before patting it out with your hands to about 1/2 inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter of your choice, (I chose a heart-shape over a round one this time!), cut out your biscuits and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush melted butter over the tops of the biscuits.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and bake biscuits for 8 - 10 minutes, or until a light, golden brown. Yield: About 10 biscuits, depending on the size of your cutter. Serve with butter, sausage gravy, honey, jelly or jam...soooo good!!

Here's another fun little biscuit trick...toss some cinnamon and sugar into the biscuit dough and use a gingerbread man cookie cutter when cutting out the biscuits. Make a powdered sugar glaze to drizzle over these when they come out of the oven, and come breakfast time your kiddos will think you are the BEST momma ever!! ;)

I hope you have a WONDERFUL Valentine's Day! Be sure to let the family and friends in your life know how much you love and appreciate them...the little niceties that we can bestow upon others really can make a difference in a person's day! A simple smile, "hello!", opening a door, etc. for a total stranger may be the only nice thing that person has had come their way in a while. I am a HUGE believer in "Nice Matters"! :)

Thanks for dropping by my blog today!


Blessings,