I am on a lifelong quest to make the world’s best biscuit. I don’t think I’d even gotten close until I made these – with butter I made myself and the real buttermilk from the butter-making process. I don’t understand the chemistry behind it, but for some reason these biscuits rose higher and were way flakier than my normal biscuits.
I use White Lily flour, which is flour made from soft winter wheat, specially formulated for biscuit-making. It’s a little hard to find outside of the South (I always pick up lots of bags of it when I’m down South), so you can substitute all-purpose flour. The real secret to good biscuits is not handling them too much – you don’t want gluten to form, so only knead the dough as long as it takes to just combine the ingredients.
Ingredients:
2 cups White Lily flour (or all-purpose)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon rubbed sage
1/4 cup (2 oz.) homemade butter (or store-bought), very cold and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup white cheddar cheese, grated
3/4 cup (or more) homemade buttermilk (or store-bought)
Special equipment: a 2-inch biscuit cutter, a 9-inch cake pan or cookie sheet
Makes 8-9 biscuits
Procedure:
- Preheat the oven to 500°.
- Lightly grease (or spray with cooking spray) a 9-inch cake pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sage.
- Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or two knives. The butter pieces should range in size from a large pea to a little lentil.
- Stir in the cheese.
- Add the buttermilk, gently stirring until the dough starts to come together. You will have a fairly wet dough.
- Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface, and knead gently for one to two turns. Roll or pat out to about 3/4-inch thickness.
- Using a floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, stamp out as many biscuits as you can, taking care not to twist the biscuit cutter into the dough. Re-roll the scraps as necessary.
- Place the biscuits into the cake pan, letting the sides touch.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until biscuits are golden brown.
6 comments
Carol Nov 21, 2008 at 8:51 am
OK..you got me! I cop to an uncontrollable addiction to those steamy, cheesy all-you-can-eat-and-I-do cheddar buscuits at Red Lobster. These look like an enhanced, gourmet version of those. Can’t wait to try them! I’m thinking they’ll go great with turkey and fixin’s.
megan Nov 25, 2008 at 10:52 am
A quick note about White Lily – Smuckers has recently purchased them, and they have decommissioned the Knoxville, TN factory where the flour has been made since 1883. I’m not sure what I’m going to do…I only have 1 bag left from the old mill.
The NY Times has an interesting article about it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18flour.html?_r=1
Counsin EVE Nov 25, 2008 at 2:36 pm
What an Excellent site….
Congratulations Megan for all your wonderful recipes. I can’t wait to try them for our holiday parties. Give Aunt Carolyn a hug and a kiss for me…xo,EVE
Kelly Nov 18, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Hello. I have a question for you regarding the rubbed sage. Should I rub it myself or buy it already in the rubbed form? I plan on making these biscuits for Thanksgiving..very excited! Thank you for the recipe.
megan Nov 18, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hi Kelly! If you can find whole dried sage leaves, that would be ideal – then you can just rub it together yourself. This way you’ll have sort of whole dried bits of sage rather than powdered dried sage. You can also use fresh sage here, as well. If you use powdered sage, just go a little easy – start out with a bit less than the recipe calls for, then give a taste to the dough to make sure it’s sage-y enough.
Kelly Nov 18, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Thanks so much! I do have access to fresh sage and whole dried leaves, and would rather use those than the powdered stuff anyway, so this is great. Thanks again.
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