Big Buttermilk Biscuits

As I am writing this post, it's 7:45AM, and I have two biscuits in the oven right now baking. I LOVE breakfast, especially savory breakfasts. I love biscuits with gravy or just some sunny side up eggs. What makes this biscuit so great is lard. Yes, lard. Sure, you could substitute something else but it won't taste the same. There is a unique taste and texture that lard brings to the biscuits. I've tried all shortening, all butter, a butter-shortening mix, a butter-lard mix, and a lard-shortening mix. None are as good as ALL lard in this recipe. I understand that lard may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's easy to find, cheap, and adds flakiness to the biscuits and pie dough. 

If you choose another recipe, let me give you two other pieces of advice. For any biscuit recipe, roll your biscuit dough to an inch, not a half-inch like other monsters on the Internet tell you. Also, crowed them together while baking. I put them in a round cake pan and place them in like petals on a leaf, with one central biscuit in the center. There is maybe a half inch between them. When they bake and rise, they will rise UP instead of out. They pull apart with little to no effort. When you cut them this thick, the baking time will probably be closer to 25 minutes like my recipe says instead of 15. 

Useful tools (but not required): Bench scraper and pastry blender

Big Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients:
2 cups of all-purpose flour (Plus more for dusting)
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of white sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup of lard
1 cup of buttermilk (2% or whole works well too)
A few tablespoons of melted or very soft unsalted butter for brushing on top

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425-degrees. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Add the lard and cut in using a pastry cutter until it resembles a coarse meal. Add the milk and stir with a fork until it comes together. The dough will be very wet - that's what we want. Heavily flour a work surface and dump the dough out. Using a bench scraper, I fold the dough over itself 20 times, lifting the dough and adding flour to the bottom and to the top as needed. You will find the dough will come together and will be much easier to work with after the 10th fold over. I pat the dough out to about 1 to 1.5 inches. Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter (or a drinking glass if you don't have a cutter), cut out your biscuits. When cutting out your biscuits, don't twist the cutter as that can seal the edges and limit its rise. Just press down firmly.

I then place the biscuits into an ungreased 10" cake pan into a flower petal pattern. So, one biscuit in the center, with the other biscuits circling it like petals on a flower. I put them fairly close, but not touching. Why do this? When they bake, they will bake out, until they touch each other (or the side of the pan), and then they will bake up. This will result in a tall biscuit. Brush the tops of the biscuits with butter. Bake for about 22 to 25 minutes (sometimes they need an extra minute, but not usually) until they are golden on top. They make about 6 to 8 biscuits depending on the size.

Freezing: 

These biscuits are pretty damn good frozen and reheated as well. Once your biscuits are baked and cooled, put them into a Ziplock bag and freeze them. When you want to reheat them, set the oven to 350-degrees and wrap each biscuit INDIVIDUALLY with aluminum foil. Once the oven is preheated, place the foil wrapped biscuits directly on the middle oven rack. Bake for 20 minutes.

This is a pastry blender or pastry cutter for those who may be unfamiliar with one.