best biscuit recipe
A million years ago, when I was a student at Baylor University in Waco there was a restaurant … Tanglewood Farms. We all went there to study, drink coffee out of big diner style mugs and eat biscuits. Their biscuits were huge and tall and light and airy. Completely blame them for the freshman 15.
After I left Waco to marry Will, I thought that was the end of enjoying those amazing biscuits. I tried other restaurants and even tried my hand with different recipes at home. Nada. Nothing came close to Tanglewood … until I went to Shirley Corriher’s cooking class at Central Market and tasted her ‘Touch of Grace’ biscuits.
Y’all.
No words. Really. Just a recipe you MUST try at home and a promise: If you had Tanglewood biscuits back the day, these will top your expectations. And if you didn’t have Tanglewood back the in day, these will top your expectations.
Touch of Grace Biscuits
2 cups spooned and leveled self-rising flour (I use White Lily) * 1/4 cup sugar (or less, if you like your biscuits less sweet) * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1/4 cup shortening * 2/3 cups heavy cream * 1 cup buttermilk * 1 cup all-purpose flour, for shaping * 3 tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, and arrange a shelf slightly below the center of the oven. Butter an 8 or 9-inch round cake pan or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the self-rising flour, sugar, and salt. Work the shortening in with your fingers until there are no large lumps. Gently stir in the cream, then some of the buttermilk until dough resembles wet cottage cheese. It should be a wet mess — not soup, but cottage-cheese texture. If you are not using a low-protein flour, this may take more than 1 cup of buttermilk.
Spread the plain all-purpose flour (not self-rising) out on a plate or pie pan. With a medium (about 2 inches, #30) ice cream scoop or spoon, place three or four scoops of dough well apart in the flour. Sprinkle flour over each. Flour your hands. Turn a dough ball in the flour to coat, pick it up, and gently shape it into a round, shaking off the excess flour as you work. Place this biscuit in the prepared pan. Coat each dough ball in the same way and place each shaped biscuit scrunched up against its neighbor so that the biscuits rise up and don’t spread out. Continue scooping and shaping until all dough is used.
Brush tops of biscuits with melted butter. Place the pan in the oven. Bake until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Invert onto one plate, then back onto another. Serve immediately and as Shirley says, “Butter ’em while they’re hot.”
It’s all about creating a wet dough. There is no rolling, no cutting. Instead, you baby the biscuits.
I call them baby dough biscuits because it’s the tender care that creates these light and airy biscuits.
Just add some butter, jam and maybe thinned sliced ham ~ spectacular.
Or whip up some baked eggs like Kristin and I did for our first ever 52 Sunday Suppers cooking class (!!) and it’s more than perfection. And never a worry with left-overs …
Check out our class photos as well as Kristin’s super easy baked egg recipe .
Week Eight Menu
best biscuits. ever.