Biscuits & Jam

I am not sure what 2012 is telling me. I was sick the first week of January and now I've been hit with strep throat. It hasn't been fun. So I'll just think of last week when I was feeling good and rolling out biscuits!

i don't have a pastry blender, i just used 2 knives to cut the butter into tiny bits

after i added the buttermilk

ready for the oven

Biscuits

3 cups of flour

1 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

9 Tablespoon of cold butter sliced

1 1/4 cups of milk

1 Tablespoon of melted butter

Preheat oven to 450.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt & baking soda).  Then add the sliced cold butter.  Using a pastry blender or 2 knives cut the butter into the flour (see picture above) until you get small pea sized pieces of butter (the faster you do this the better). Then add the milk. Stir just until the dough comes together. Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself about 3 to 4 times.

Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough (don't twist the cutter into the dough). Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. You can use the scraps from the leftover dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. Just to let you know, the biscuits from the second batch won't be as light and fluffy.  I throw the scraps away at this point. Brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter.

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, about 15 minutes.