Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits

Okay, so last week you made butter and now you have extra fresh buttermilk. Time to make some biscuits!

 

Adapted from Gouda Monster

Ingredients:

6 Tbsp COLD butter, unsalted
2 1/4 cups flour
(cake flour recommended - lower gluten content for a fluffier biscuit)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
Salt (1/2 tsp if serving with gravy, 1 tsp if eating plain)
1 cup buttermilk

Notes:
If using All purpose flour, reduce flour to 2 cups and whisk in 2 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions: 
First, Preheat your oven to 500F.

In a food processor pulse together everything except the buttermilk until a bit crumbly. Make sure small pieces of butter remain. Transfer to the freezer and butter a round baking pan. When the oven is hot put your flour mixture back on to the food processor. Pour in the buttermilk and pulse until just combined. Do not overmix! The dough should be loose and shaggy. Pour the dough out onto a floured surface and with a very light touch press it into a rough rectangle shape. Fold it over itself twice and then gently press it out again so it’s about an inch thick.

Using a biscuit cutter begin to cut out your biscuits. Depending on how much you pressed out your dough, you will get 5 or 6 big biscuits with a 3″ cutter. You could press your dough out a little bit more, use a 2″ inch cutter, and probably manage to squeeze out 10-12 biscuits if you prefer. ~ Be careful using drinking glasses to cut the dough, the duller edge tends to seal the side of the biscuit more and it rises less.

Put the buttered pan in the oven until the butter gets hot (not too long or it will smoke). Remove it and place your cut biscuits inside. The edges will probably touch and that’s ok.

Bake in the oven for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown on top. Wait until they cool enough that you don't burn your fingers, slather on some butter, jam, or gravy and enjoy!

Glass Jar Butter

One thing I remember fondly is making homemade butter with nothing more than a glass jar and a marble. It is a lot of fun and great for arm muscles! (or to tire out the kids)

Adapted from Memory

Ingredients:

Whipping Cream
Glass Marble
Glass Jar
Enthusiastic Shaker

Optional:

1/2 tsp Salt for every 6 cups of cream
Water
Blender

Expiration:
2 days w/o optional step
1 week w/ optional step

Directions: 

Carefully clean and dry your glass jar and marble, then fill to about 3/4 with whipping cream. The closer your cream is to room temperature, the better. Room temp. cream means less shaking overall.

Add the marble and seal the jar. Shake. A lot. (For smaller kids, use something closer to a baby food sized jar)

After about 5 minutes of shaking, you should already see the thickening starting. This is the butter starting to separate from the buttermilk. Continue shaking for about another 5-8 minutes until there is a very obvious separation between the thin liquid buttermilk and the butter solid.

Strain the butter. (Save the buttermilk for baking!)

Optional:
To keep your butter longer, rinse with ice water and add to a blender. Add about the same amount of ice water as butter and blend at low speed, then drain the water. Repeat until the water is no longer cloudy when draining. This removes any remaining buttermilk and keeps it from spoiling.

At this point you can mix in your salt. The measurement is an approximation, so add slowly until you get the taste you want. Wrap your butter in wax paper and store in the fridge, ready to use.