Buttermilk Biscuits

For the past few months I have been regularly making a recipe for buttermilk biscuits from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home. I like it so much that I have seriously been making them almost every other day ever since I first made them (though initially I was making them every day). I will give you my own slight variation of the recipe, as I make half of what the recipe prescribes, and take a few shortcuts.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup pastry flour

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter (chopped into about 1 square centimetre cubes)

3/4 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 ºF

2. Prepare a pan for the oven (with aluminum foil or wax paper to reduce dishes)

3. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir it up

4. Add the little butter cubes, then mix it all (I do it with my hands) until the butter pieces (or shreds, as tends to be the case) are pretty small (the original recipe recommends “pea sized”)

5. Make a well in the centre, then pour in most of the buttermilk, and mix it in (but not too much)

6. Make the dough into a 2-2.5 centimetres-thick slab on the pan, then cut (or shape) biscuit shapes out of it

7. “Brush” the remaining bit of buttermilk over the tops of each biscuit (I drip it on and use my fingers to “brush” it around)

8. Put it in the oven for ten minutes on each side (sometimes I need 15 mins for the second side)

Before and after