PROBLY NEED IT:

• medium size bowl

• wee sized bowl

• rolling pin

• sheet pan

• spatula 

IF YOU’RE FANCY:

• colander

• small whisk

• basting brush 

• round cutter 

• parchment paper

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups white flour

  • Additional flour for working the dough.
    ** You can substitute self-rising flower here — no shame — the Internet loves White Lily Flour and it is indeed a good choice! In this case, omit the baking powder below **

• 1 stick unsalted butter frozen overnight

  • 8 tablespoons for the dough, 2 more for brushing the tops

• 1.5 tablespoons baking powder

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• .5 teaspoon of salt

• 1 cup heavy cream

  • Maybe a splash more if your dough is stubborn

HOW TO:

Get your oven on the path to 475 degrees. 

Start with the dry stuff

Use a colander (or a flour sifter if you’re the Barefoot Contessa or something) to sift together your dry ingredients into a medium-sized bowl and give things a stir. I like to use that small whisk to make sure everything is well-mixed. 

Respect the butter

Lop off two tablespoons of that stick of frozen butter and set aside in a small bowl. Take the remaining six tablespoons and grate them down to bits. 

The best method, if available, is to run the frozen butter through a food processor grater attachment, which takes less than a second. If not a box grater will do. Or you can dice it up with a knife. 

Once your butter is in many small bits, quickly transfer to the bowl of your dry ingredients and toss gently to coat the butter bits with the flour mix.

The main thing throughout is that we want the butter to stay as cold as possible. If your method of getting one large piece of butter into many small pieces of butter has made that butter soft, once you’ve tossed it with your flower put the bowl in the fridge, or better yet the freezer, to chill for 5 minutes. 

Adding the wet stuff

Add the cup of heavy cream to your dry ingredients and stir together gently with your spatula. As you do this, don’t over work the dough, just make sure you’ve dug underneath and that there are no pockets of unmixed flour hiding out down there. The dough might look a little dry and shaggy and that’s ok. 

Sometimes, if needed, I add an additional splash of cream to help consolidate any stubbornly independent bits of flour. But we don’t want this too wet and we don’t want our precious butter bits too squished. 

Place your dough mix in the fridge for about 10 minutes. 

This is both to cool things down again and to let the flour mingle with the liquid. The extra time helps to avoid that odd GF baked goods combination of somehow ending up simultaneously gritty and gummy.

Rolling the dough

Spread flour on a work surface and dump out your dough. Cover with parchment paper (or dust with more flour) and quickly roll to about a one inch thick rectangle. 

Fold the dough in half long-ways, and roll again. Repeat this process four or five more times, adding flour to your work surface as necessary to keep things from sticking.

Try to handle the dough as little as possible with your hot sweaty mitts. Just shore up those edges, as needed, to keep your rectangle tidy.

After your last round of folding and rolling, wrap dough in parchment or plastic wrap and tuck back in the fridge for about 20 minutes. 

Somewhere around here your oven should let you know it’s ready for you. 

Cutting your biscuits

Reflour your work surface and prep your sheet pan with parchment, if you have it. 

After 20 minutes, retrieve your dough at return to your work surface. If it isn’t already there, roll it to about one inch thick. 

Use your round cutter to press straight down into the dough. No twisting! The dough should come up with the cutter and push out easily onto the pan. Cut as close together as possible to limit the number of times you need to refold the dough. 

Personally, I think 2.5 inches is the optimal size but whatever looks like a biscuit to you is just right. And you don’t need anything fancy to pop these out. Even a straight-sided drinking glass or used aluminum can will do in a pinch — just make sure to dip whatever you’re using in some flour between each cut.

Snug your biscuits gently up against one another on the sheet pan in order to help them help each other rise in the oven.

As you run out of space for cutting your dough, fold the dough back together quickly, handling as little as possible. Roll back to one inch, cut, repeat. This recipe reliably makes 7 to 10 biscuits with minimal waste, depending on how thick you’ve made them. 

Baking

Place biscuits in the 425 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. 

Melt your remaining two tablespoons of butter in the wee bowl. 

Biscuits may not always brown on top when baking, so yI don't use that as a reliable indicator of done-ness. But you should see them puff up, with discernible layers. The tops if not brown will begin to look craggy and craters, like the surface of the moon.

Somewhere around the 12 minute mark (but more if you think they need it), pull the biscuits out.

Finishing

Brush with your melted butter. The 2 tablespoons your reserved should be just right to coat all 10 biscuits. 

Switch the over to over to the broiler. On the top rack brown the butter biscuits for maybe a minute. Don’t walk away, keep an eye one them and shimmy the tray around so that they all have a chance to get golden. 

Remove from the oven and, if you can stand it, let them cool for about five minutes before trying to handle them. Enjoy!

IF YOU”RE IN A HURRY — you can totally omit the various fridge and freezer steps to chill your dough. My grandma never chilled any dough and her biscuits turned out pretty darn good every time. Biscuits are a humble food made with simple ingredients, meant to nourish hard working people whose time, and life’s labor, was often not their own. There are many paths to success and the only measure of validity is whether you enjoyed the result.

— MDT