Fluffy and Light Biscuits

The search is over!!! After almost a year of searching for the perfect biscuit recipe, (which included a lot of failed attempts) I have found what I think is the BEST recipe. These biscuits remind you of the ones you get at your favorite hole-in-the-wall diner, but could never figure out how to recreate at home. There are a few people I have to thank for this accomplishment. My dad, who found the recipe while rifling through the King Arthur Flour catalog, my mom for braving the local Food Lion to find White Lily self-rising flour, and my family for being my guinea pigs throughout this entire process.



Anyone who has tried to make biscuits knows that it is a bit tricky, to say the least. You have to make sure all of your ingredients are COLD. Like stick your butter in the freezer for 10 minutes cold. And there is some controversy as to whether you should use shortening or butter to make a good, flaky biscuit. There are also some recipes that tell you to fold the dough a few times, to get the layers. However, if you work the dough too much, you'll melt the fat and end up with dense biscuits. So needless to say, biscuits were an item that I had syched myself out of making a successfully.

That is, until my dad showed me the recipe from King Arthur Flour. It looked like a simple recipe, so I decided to try it. I had heard the White Lily flour (a southern tradition) yielded the best biscuits, but I hadn't been able to find it at Martin's or Kroger. I mentioned this to my mom and she immediately thought of Food Lion. I'll admit, Food Lion kind of gives me the heeby cheebies, so my loving mother went and picked up the flour.

I went into this recipe with and open mind and decided to try the folding technique that I had heard about. I also left the dough pretty thick, about 1" when I cut out the circles. Both of these decisions led to tall, flaky, delicious biscuits. I'm never getting rid of this recipe, but I'll definitely need to double it next time because everyone was going back for more!

Biscuits (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

3 cups White Lily self rising flour
6 Tbsp butter, cold
1 cup cold milk

1 tbsp melted butter, for brushing tops

1. Preheat oven to 425. Lightly grease a cooking pan

2. Cut cold butter into flour until the butter chunks are the size of peas. Add the milk to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

3. Place dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a circle. Sprinkle a little flour on top and fold over. Repeat this two more times. Pat the dough to 1" thickness and then use your biscuit cutter, dusted with flour, to cut.

4. Place biscuits on the baking pan and bake for 12-14 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the tops with melted butter. Serve warm.