Buttermilk Biscuits

These are just awesome southern american buttermilk biscuits! Quick and simple recipe for perfect soft and flaky results. I've seen dozens of recipes for buttermilk biscuits and they all had their pros and cons. Most of the time they seamed a bit to much work. Recently I accidentally came across a recipe on Facebook where one southern lady made these. She eyeballed all the ingredients but it seamed to work perfectly. So, after couple of days of testing and measuring we came up with our own recipe. Don't ask me how many biscuits I ate in the last five days! :-D 

Time needed: about 20 minutes
Dough preparation: about 5 minutes
Baking time about 15 minutes

Ingrediens
310 g self rising flour (2 cups)*
60 g of shortening - we use lard (1/4 cup)
260 g buttermilk (1 cup)**

*check tips under the recipe on how to make self rising flour
** check tips under the recipe on buttermilk substitution

Method
1. Start by preheating your oven to 230°C (450°F)
2. Put the flour in a mixing bowl and make a small well in it.
3. Add cold shortening (reserve a tiny bit to grease your baking pan) and cold buttermilk
4. Mix and squeeze between your fingers for couple of seconds to form a rough dough. Don't use your mixer for this dough. The biscuits would be overworked, crumbly and dense. 
5. When the ingredients have just combined transfer the dough to a floured surface.
6. Fold in half for couple of times (2-3 folds) 

7. Press down to about 1.5 to 2 cm (1/2 to 3/4 inch) with your palm. 
8. Cut your biscuits with a cutter and place them into a greased baking pan so that they are just touching each other. 
9. Reshape the scraps by simply pressing them together and cut additional biscuits. 
(We used a cutter with 7.5 cm (3 inch) diameter and got 6 biscuits out of this dough)

10. Bake in a preheated oven on 230°C (450°F) for about 15 minutes.

Have a bite!

Tips:
Self rising flour
If you live somewhere where self rising flour is not an regular item in the baking aisle of a grocery store no need to worry! Self rising flour is a combination of regular (all-purpose) flour, baking powder, and salt. To make your own self rising flour use the following ratios: 
150 g (1 cup) of all-purpose flour
20-25 g (1 and 1/2 tsp) baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Buttermilk 
Just like the self rising flour, buttermilk is not always and everywhere available item but it is also very easily replaceable. Buttermilk is the leftover liquid that is a side product of butter production, Buttermilk ferments into a thick, tangy cream. Sometimes it is sold under the name "sour milk".
If you don't have buttermilk in your fridge you can simply take
1 cup of milk and
1 tbsp of white vinegar or lemon juice.
Mix it well and leave for 5-10 minutes  at room temperature. After that you can use the mixture instead of butter milk. 

Another option is to use the mix of 
3/4 cup of yogurt 
1/4 cup of water
​as your buttermilk supplement.