How to Make the Best Breakfast Biscuits Ever

Biscuits make a terrific breakfast food. You can go all out and serve them with gravy for a big meal. Or you can simply warm them up, add some jam or fresh fruit puree and have a nice simple breakfast on any given weekday.

Of course, you could always buy Pillsbury biscuits or other readymade breakfast biscuits. But homemade breakfast biscuits are arguably better than Pillsbury biscuits any day. The following recipe will help you to make the best breakfast biscuits ever for whatever type of breakfast meal you want to include them with:

• Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
• Mix the following ingredients in a bowl: 2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
• Take 1/3 cup unsalted butter. Cut it into small pieces. Blend it into the mixture.
• Add 1 1/4 cup buttermilk. Mix the entire thing until you have a dough.
• Spread the dough out on a flat surface. Roll it to about 1" thickness. Fold in half.
• Repeat the previous step three times in quick succession to make the dough ready for use. On the last time, flatten the dough a little bit more so it is 3/4" thick.
• Get out a biscuit cutter. Dip in into flour. Slice the first biscuit off of the dough. Place it on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Clean any remaining dough off of the cutter. Dip the cutter in the flour. Slice the next biscuit and add it to the cookie sheet. Repeat this process until you are out of dough. You should be able to make approximately one dozen biscuits with this recipe.
• Bake for ten minutes.

Your breakfast biscuits are now ready to eat. You can add jam or fruit puree, spread butter on the breakfast biscuits or get them ready for some gravy.

Some additional tips for even better biscuits:

• When adding the butter to the mixture, use a frozen stick of butter. You will need to cut the frozen pieces into very small pieces and stir well to blend them into the dry goods mixture. A pastry cutter is a great tool to blend frozen butter in with.
• Use buttermilk that has 2% butterfat content for the best recipes. If you want to be a bit healthier, you can use 1% butterfat content buttermilk. If you do this, you may want to use a slight bit less buttermilk than the recipe calls for; use about one cup instead of 1 1/4 cup.
• When slicing the biscuits, you want to make sure to slice the dough straight through. Try to make a single, quick slice for each biscuit. Make sure that you do not twist the dough when you are making your slices as the biscuits will not rise properly if they are all twisted up.
• These biscuits are intended to be served hot. They will taste best if they are served immediately after they are made. If you want to eat them later then your best bet is to warm them up for a few seconds in a microwave to soften them up and refresh their taste.

This recipe has been adapted from "Paul's Best Biscuit Recipe" which is included in the cookbook "Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living" by Katrina Heron.