Makes 12 to 18
Shirley Corriher is a very talented Southern cooking teacher and cookbook author who specializes in knowing why food works the way it does. Her grandmother, Nanny, taught her to use a big wooden biscuit bowl to turn out these feathery and delicate biscuits, but she's adapted it to modern measures and equipment.
2½ cups self-rising flour (if self-rising flour is not available, combine 1 cup all-purpose flour, teaspoon salt, and 1½ teaspoons baking powder)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons shortening
7/8 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 450F.
Spray and 8-inch round cake pan with nonstick spray.
Combine 1½ cups flour, the soda, salt, and sugar. With your fingers or a pastry cutter, work the shortening into the flour mixture until there are no shortening lumps larger than a small pea.
Stir in the buttermilk and let the dough stand 2 or 3 minutes. It will be very wet. This dough is so wet that you cannot shape it in the usual manner. Pour the remaining cup of flour onto a plate or pie pan. Flour your hands well. Spoon or scoop with a small ice cream scoop a biscuit-sized lump of wet dough into the flour and sprinkle some flour on top. With your hands, shape the biscuit into a soft round, gently shaking off any excess flour. The dough is so soft that it will not hold its shape. As you shape each biscuit, place it into an 8-inch round cake pan, pushing the biscuits tightly against each other so that they will rise up rather than spread out. Continue shaping the biscuits in this manner using all the dough.
Brush the biscuits with the melted butter and place on the oven shelf just above the center. Increase the oven temperature to 475F. and bake 15 to 18 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool a minute or two in the pan.
Note .... read entire recipe before mixing together anything. Self-rising flour is available at most stores (or King Arthur Flour online) usually but not so much at the present time. It should be a wet, sticky type dough which leads to a very light & flavorful biscuit. I have only made this recipe with self-rising flour. Depending on your oven temp, you may not want to increase to 475F as listed. Copied from Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Biscuits.
Edited by Stokeme, 03 May 2020 - 06:03 AM.
