Hands off my biscuits

Fluffy biscuits (2)

When I was young, I didn't like biscuits. How anyone can not like flaky, buttery packets of calorie-laden deliciousness, I will never know, but I suppose I was a strange kid. I would devour dandelion greens, okra and calamari by the bowlful. But biscuits? Nope.  Every once in a while, my grandma (yiayia) would take me to KFC, where I would get my meal and she would order a coffee and a biscuit. Plus, she'd eat the biscuit that came with my meal. Obviously, yiayia knew what was up.  I haven't been to KFC in ages but I guarantee that if I went today and someone tried to swipe my biscuit, loved relative or not, they would be swatted away--and not nicely.

The only biscuits I've made at home before tonight were the ones in a box from Trader Joe's :) I don't eat biscuits often because, these days, I could eat a dozen myself and that's probably something I shouldn't do. But today I ate healthy and went to the gym, so biscuits were definitely in order. I decided to make the fluffy biscuits from Cook's Illustrated and they turned out...well, fluffy. And buttery. And good.

Fluffy biscuits

Fluffy Biscuits
Cook's Illustrated
Makes 1 dozen

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup plain cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/4 lb. unsalted, chilled butter cut into 1/4" cubes
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup buttermilk; additional if needed (I used an additional 2 Tbsp. or so)

Preheat the oven to 450 and position your rack in the middle of the oven.

Mix the first 6 ingredients together in a mixing bowl or the bowl of your food processor. With a pastry blender or the steel blade of your food processor, cut the butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse meal.

If mixing by hand, stir in the buttermilk with a spatula or fork until the mixture is a soft, slightly sticky ball. Add more buttermilk if necessary. If using a food processor, add the buttermilk and pulse process until dough gathers into moist clumps. Remove and form into a ball.

Lightly flour your hands and divide the dough into twelve equal portions. Lightly bat a portion of the dough back and forth until a ball forms, and then pat lightly with cupped hands to form a rough ball. Place formed dough rounds 1" apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush dough tops with melted butter. Bake until biscuit tops are lightly brown, about 10-12 minutes.  

Fluffy biscuits (3)