Food Processor Biscuits

For years I've tried to perfect homemade biscuits but was never able to get them to look or taste like the ones my mother made.  She has this big bowl that she keeps her self-rising flour in, makes a well in the center and puts a chunk of lard and milk in it to work it into a dough.  After her dough comes together, she kneads it a few times, then pinches the dough into little clumps, then rolls each one into balls, flattens them into discs, places them in a greased biscuit pan. After she has placed them all in the pan, she takes her hand and gives them another press down, places them in a 450 degre oven and bakes them.  During the last couple of minutes in the oven, she turns the oven to broil to brown them.

I love watching cooking shows on TV and YouTube and ran across a YouTube Video with instructions for making biscuits in a food processor.  I followed the instructions and loved the results.

Buttermilk Biscuits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 6 tbsp of butter
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 
  

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Add dry ingredients to food processor and pulse 4-5 times to combine.
3. Cut butter into pats and place on top of flour mixture in food processor. Pulse 5-6 times to incorporate. Do not over mix. 
4. Add buttermilk and pulse just until dough forms... About 9-10 pulses... Do not over-mix. 
5. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Shape into a ball and roll to desired thickness. 
6. I used my cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits then re-worked the remaining dough and made a bread stick. 
7.  Place biscuits on a lightly greased pan (I use a parchment paper lined pan instead). 

I probably left my biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but I do like my biscuits brown.  They were still good and my husband loved them.

Update: The recipe above calls for buttermilk and I don't always have buttermilk in my fridge.  I decided to purchase a container of the powdered buttermilk and try it.  There is a definite difference in the final outcome.  I added 3 tablespoons of the buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients in the food processor and added 3/4 cups of water in step 4.  I think I will add a little less water the next time because my dough was a bit too sticky and I had to incorporate more flour than I wanted to.  When I finally got the dough to the consistency that I wanted.  I squeezed off clumps of dough (just like my mother does), rolled them into balls, patted them into discs and placed on a parchment paper lined cast iron pan.  

Again, I left the biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but they, other than that, they were tender, soft and delicious. I don't know whether the powdered buttermilk made the difference or not.  I'll have to give each method another try to see but, as I stated earlier, I will use less water when using the powdered buttermilk.