My husband came across this from the nice folk at allrecipes.com and asked if I might could make a batch for our St. Patrick’s Day dinner. I am not a biscuit maker, but the recipe looked straight forward enough, and with my spiffy food processor, cutting the butter into the dough would be a snap!
Note: do not be concerned about the buttermilk or the self-rising flour; we have you covered for making both at home, with absolutely no special shopping or ingredients required.
INGREDIENTS
•2 cups self-rising flour
•1/4 tsp baking soda
•7 tbsp very cold butter, cut into pieces
•3/4 cup buttermilk, plus additional for brushing
•1/2 cup shredded Irish Cheddar cheese, divided, plus more for topping
•1/4 cup sliced green onions, divided
Note: for my biscuits, I used closer to one cup of Cheddar and 1/2 cup of scallions.
Self-Rising Flour: whisk together two cups of all-purpose flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, and one teaspoon of regular table salt.
Buttermilk: for each cup of buttermilk, needed, measure one tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into a measuring cup, then add milk to make one cup. Stir with a fork and set aside to rest for about fifteen minutes. Violà! Buttermilk!
Heat your oven to 400º and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk the baking soda into the self-rising flour, then cut in the very cold butter with a pastry blender until you have a coarse crumb consistency.
Or, add the butter to the flour in your processor fitted with the metal blade, then pulse a couple of times until you get that coarse crumb texture.
Add the buttermilk to the processor and pulse until you have a smooth dough.
This will all come together very quickly.
If you have not used a processor, transfer the butter and flour mixture to a floured board and make a well in the center.
Pour the buttermilk into the center of the well, then stir the dough together with a fork until you have a shaggy dough.
Note: my processed dough was not at all really what I would call shaggy.
Roll your dough out on the floured board until you have a 1/2 inch thick rectangle.
Note: I used another piece of parchment paper between my dough and rolling pin.
Scatter half of the shredded cheese and half of the scallions over the dough.
Using a bench scraper, fold the dough from each end into thirds.
Roll the dough back out into a rectangle again and top with the remaining Cheddar and scallions.
Note: obviously, if you don’t care for Cheddar or scallions, you can swap out the fillings – like mebbe bleu cheese and chopped dates?
Using your bench scraper, again fold the dough over into thirds.
For the last time (promise!), roll your dough out into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.
Cut the dough into biscuits and transfer to your parchment lined baking pan.
Brush the tops with more buttermilk, then bake for about 20 minutes, until cooked through and golden brown on top.
Transfer to a rack to cool.
Nice biscuits, bro!
And they did go very nicely with my Barbecued Corned Beef and Garlic Sautéed Asparagus.
We didn’t really even miss the cabbage.