Buttermilk Biscuits

This recipe is largely based upon Alton Brown's biscuit recipes - both the original one and the reloaded version. A lot of the instructions come directly from his recipes.

I played around with the fat quantities a bit. Stick to 50-60g of butter, but the secondary fat can be anywhere between 60g and 90g. I like low fat buttermilk, but full fat is great as well. If you use full fat buttermilk, keep the secondary fat in the 60g level.

Makes about 15

Ingredients

• 560 g all-purpose flour, (~4 cups)
• 32 g baking powder, (8 teaspoons)
• 2 g baking soda, (1/2 teaspoon)
• 6 g kosher salt, (1 1/2 teaspoon)
• 52 g unsalted butter, chilled (1/2 stick)
• 60-90 g Lard or Duck Fat, chilled (1/3-1/2 cup)
• 16 oz buttermilk, chilled (2 cups)

Instructions

Heat the oven to 450°F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir or whisk to combine. Using a pastry cutter blend fat into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. Stir the buttermilk into the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough just comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself a few times until it forms a cohesive ball. Press into a 1-inch thick layer. Cut out biscuits with a 2 1/4-inch cutter. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting.

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.