Recipes from the Best Food Writing: Biscuit

Scott Peacock's Hot, Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits
Makes 15 (2.5-inch) biscuits
Hands on: 10 minuties
Total time: 20-22 minutes

5 cups sifted White Lily flour (measured after sifting)
1 tablespoon plus 1.5 teaspoons homemade baking powder (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
0.5 cup packed lard, chilled
1.75 cups chilled buttermilk, plus a few tablespoons more if needed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat over to 500 degrees. Put the flour, homemade baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk well to thoroughly blend. Add the lard and, working quickly, coat in flour and rub between your fingertips until about half the lard is coarsely blended and the other half remins in large pieces about 0.5 inch in size.
2. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk. Stir quickly, just until the dough is blended and begins to mass. The dough should be soft and a bit sticky and there should not be large amounts of unincorporated flour in the bowl. If dough is too dry, add a few tablespoons more buttermilk.
3. Turn the dough immediately onto a generously floured surface, and with floured hands knead briskly 8 to 10 times until a cohesive dough is formed.
4. Gently flatten the dough with your hands so it is of an even thickness. Then, using a floured rolling pin, roll it out to a uniform thickness of 0.5 inch. (If the dough begins to stick to your rolling pin, dust the pin-not the dough-with flour. Flouring the dough at this point will result in dusty-looking biscuits). With a dinner fork dipped in flour, pierce the dough completely through at 0.5-inch intervals.
5. Lightly flour a 2.5- or 3-inch biscuit cutter and stamp out rounds. (Do not twist the cutter when stamping out biscuits.) Cut the biscuits from the dough as close together as you can for a maximum yield. Arrange cut biscuits on a heavy, ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheet so that they almost touch. Do not reroll the scraps. Just bake as is and enjoy as a treat.
6. Bake in upper third of the oven for 8 to 12 minutes until crusty golden brown. (Check about 6 minutes into baking and rotate the pan if needed to ensure even cooking.) Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.

Retrieved from: Peacock, S. "The Art of the Biscuit," pp. 241-249 in Hughes, Holly (ed.) Best Food Writing. New York: Da Capo Press

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