No Rise Biscuits

Sweet, sweet biscuits how I love you. Dripping in butter and honey, slathered in apple butter, covered in jam, I'll take ya just about anyway I can. My husbands favorite way to eat ya is with sausage gravy. It's his absolute favorite breakfast (which he had this morning, lucky dog) and if you throw a few pound of bacon along with that he'd be one very happy man.

Not being a Southern girl, I don't feel confident about my biscuit making abilities. Oh how I wish I was an expert biscuit maker, but the plain truth is, I am not. I have to work on my biscuits. Since I wanted homemade biscuits to be on my Thanksgiving menu and not wanting to subject my guests to a first time recipe flop, I decided I better get my buns into the kitchen and sharpen up on my biscuit making skills.

After several days searching the food blogs I happened upon this recipe from The Homesick Texan. Texans - biscuits right? Southern girls know how to cook biscuits right? Well I can tell you, yes, yes they do. This recipe was quick and easy and produced a mouth watering biscuit just screaming to be doused in butter and jam (or sausage and gravy if you are like my husband).

I always wondered how people got the biscuits to come part into two flaky pieces so nice and easy, well I had an epiphany re-reading the recipe while I was rolling them out. The dough is folded over before your cut out the biscuits. Well duh...I told you I was no Southern girl.

See the two layers?

Biscuits - recipe from The Homesick Texan
Printable recipe
2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of sugar (can add more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of butter, cold (8 tablespoons)
3/4 cup of buttermilk, cream or half-and-half

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cut the stick of butter into pieces, and work into the flour mixture with your hands or a pastry blender until it resembles pea-sized crumbs.

Add the liquid, mixing until a bit loose and sticky. Pour dough out on a floured surface, and knead for a minute. Dough should be smooth and no longer wet. You can sprinkle more flour on the surface if you find it’s sticking. Take dough into a ball, and hit it with a rolling pin, turning it and folding it in half every few whacks. Do this for a couple of minutes.

Roll out dough until it’s 1/4 of an inch thick, and then fold it in half. Using a round cutter (can use a glass or a cup if don’t have a biscuit cutter) cut out your biscuits from folded dough. Place on a greased baking sheet close together (so they rise up not out), and bake for 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Makes 10-12 biscuits. If you don’t want to roll and cut them out, after kneading and beating the dough you can drop the dough onto the baking sheet with a spoon. They’re not as symmetrical (dropped biscuits are also known as cat head biscuits) but they’re no less delicious.