Dorie Greenspan's Basic Biscuits

Pop quiz! Who can tell me what the acronym BFD stands for?? Anyone? You, in the back? No? ANYONE? Okay, okay, the answer is....

...BREAKFAST FOR DINNER! It's a staple at my house because (on the off occasion he spends the night) Josh doesn't like to eat breakfast in the morning, and it's my favorite meal! Well, technically French toast is my favorite meal. It would undoubtedly be my last meal if I were ever put on death row. Yeah, I've thought about it! Where am I going with this? Oh yeah! The other night I was totally out of ideas about what to make for dinner. I remembered that my dad had just bought FIVE BAGS of unbleached flour from Target (on clearance for $1.34, how could he say no?). What could I make for dinner that would utilize that flour? Sausage gravy and biscuits!

I don't consider myself much of a biscuit maker. I've said it before, and I don't mind reiterating it, Hardees is my #1 favorite biscuit. I know I could never come close to recreating it at home, so I don't try. But sometimes I gotta have a biscuit without driving to Hardees. I don't have a go-to recipe because, like I said, I'm not a biscuit maker. I flipped through a few cookbooks and settled on a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From My Home to Yours." It did the job as a platform for a giant pile of sausage gravy. But, comparatively speaking, Hardees is still my main squeeze.

Getting ready! I like to grate frozen butter into the flour. I only got 7 biscuits out of the first roll! =/ I'm no biscuit queen, but they tasted yummy!

Basic Biscuits (from "Baking: From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan)
Makes 12 biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 cup cold whole milk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl. Drop in butter and using fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Using fingertips or pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into dry ingredients until mixture is pebbly. You'll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces of everything in between - and that's just right.

Pour the milk over the dry ingredients, grab a fork and toss and gently turn the ingredients until you've got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle kneading - 3 or 4 turns should be enough to bring everything together.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour and pat the dough out with your hand or roll it until 1/2 inch high. Don't worry if its not completely even. Light touch is more important than accuracy.

Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of this first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working as little as possible, pat to a 1/2 inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer them to the sheet.

Bake the biscuits for 14 to 18 minutes, or until they are puffed and golden brown. Transfer to a serving basket.

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