Grandmom’s Buttermilk Biscuits

These have been a family favorite for as long as I can remember.  Only, I don’t remember my Grandmom ever making them.  Maybe that’s because my grandparents never lived near us while they were hosting us, and Granddad would always spoil us grandkids with more kid friendly foods when we would go visit them on their farm in Alabama.

How cute were my grandparents?? This was way before my time, but out on their farm in Alabama.  The baby is my older brother and the other dude is my older cousin Todd.  We all used to love exploring this farm and sometimes I wonder if Granddad didn’t know that and if that wasn’t part of the reason he retired there.

But back to the biscuits…My mom always seemed to have some of these in her freezer.  These are my brother’s favorite and often part of his birthday present every year; but really we all like them!

I had never made them before but my mom has now given me 2 biscuit cutters and since I had some time over the holidays I decided to give it a try.  Plus we are redoing the family cookbook for my mom and trying out the recipes to make sure everything is correct, because the original family cookbook had several things that needed to be corrected.  They are super easy to make and next time I want to try adding some jalapenos and cheddar to them.

Grandmom’s Buttermilk Biscuits

2 C Self-Rising Flour
1/4 tsp Soda
1/4 C Shortening
3/4 C Buttermilk

Heat your oven to 450 degrees and then put everything in a bowl and mix.

To really mix the ingredients well, just use your hand; don’t be afraid to get down and dirty!

Then you’ll want to roll out the dough.  My mom sprinkles some flour on her counter top and then rolls the dough out on it, but I just put wax paper down and then I didn’t have anything to clean up!  Once you’ve rolled out the dough to between 1/4 and 1/2 inch use a circle cutter to cut out the biscuits.

You don’t need to spray the pan, these won’t stick.  Especially if you rolled it out on flour, but even mine didn’t stick.  Take a fork and poke each biscuit to create holes.  We’re not really sure why this needs to be done, but if you don’t do it, supposedly the texture of the biscuits completely changes.  Line them up in a metal pan and if you’re going to serve them fresh out the oven you’ll want to cook them between 8-12 minutes but if you’re going to freeze them cook them about 5 minutes.

Be sure you let them cool completely if you are going to freeze them, before putting them in the freezer.  To freeze them line them up on a pan and make sure they aren’t touching so they don’t stick together.  I let mine sit in the freezer over night.  Then I placed them in a ziplock bag, labeled them with the date and put them back in the freezer.

Now you’ve got biscuits waiting in the freezer anytime you want them. Whether you want them to be breakfast or serve them along with dinner.  They go great with just about anything!  Now, since this was my first time to make these biscuits, I of course had to taste test one.  You know, to make sure they turned out just right!

 So, I ate the “ugly” one.  I made a biscuit out of the left over pieces that weren’t quite big enough to make a “pretty” one.  As soon as it came out of the oven I put a slice of butter inside of it.  And it was delicious!  Apparently I can make biscuits!