The Best Buttermilk Biscuits & Honey Butter
Ingredients
For the buttermilk biscuits
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- 6 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- Pulse in
- 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp very cold vegetable shortening cut in small cubes (I store mine in the freezer)
- 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp very cold salted butter cut in small cubes
- 2 cups buttermilk
For the honey butter
- 1 cup butter not margarine or other horrible butter substitutes
- 1/2 cup honey
Instructions
To prepare the buttermilk biscuits
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Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
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In a food processor, blend together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.
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Pulse in the cold butter and shortening. Do not over incorporate the shortening and butter into the flour. Similar to making a flaky pastry, small pieces of butter should be visible in the flour.
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Transfer this mixture from the food processor into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Pour in the buttermilk.
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Working very quickly with a wooden spoon, fold the dry mixture through the buttermilk, only until the flour disappears, then stop immediately.
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Drop the sticky dough onto a well floured counter top or bread board. Sprinkle the top of the dough with additional flour as well as flouring your hands to handle the dough. I don’t even use a rolling pin for these biscuits, the dough is soft enough to pat it out gently with floured hands to a thickness of about 1 & 1/2 inches.
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Using a sharp 2 inch biscuit cutter cut the biscuits out an place them, almost touching, on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I recommend aluminum baking sheets because they tolerate the higher oven temperature without burning the bottom of the biscuits.
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Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are evenly golden brown. Delicious served warm with Honey Butter.
To make the Honey Butter
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Honey butter is simply honey beaten into plain butter in a 2 to 1 ratio of butter to honey.
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Beat together with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
Recipe Notes
The original recipe was based upon a very old recipe that I was given many years ago. It's been a while since this recipe was first published on Rock Recipes and some people have written over the years that they use considerably less baking powder in the recipe. Some have found that it affects the taste.
From my own experiments, though, I have found that you will still get very good results using 4 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 tsp soda.
You may want to consider those amounts first and increase it in later batches if you feel your biscuits need more lift.
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.