Recipe: Buttermilk Biscuits

To use up some of the left over buttermilk I had from making the oven-baked onion rings, I found this recipe for drop biscuits -the perfect compliment to our Sunday night bowl of chili. They were fairly easy to make, and using the buttermilk added a very different flavour to just the usual flour and milk biscuits. 

INGREDIENTS

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup buttermilk (cold)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly (about 5 minutes), plus 2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing biscuits

DIRECTIONS

PREHEAT oven to 475 degrees. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in large bowl. Combine buttermilk and 8 tablespoons melted butter in medium bowl, stirring until butter forms small clumps.

ADD buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and stir with rubber spatula until just incorporated and batter pulls away from sides of bowl. Using greased 1/4-cup dry measure, scoop level amount of batter and drop onto parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet (biscuits should measure about 2 1/4 inches in diameter and 1 1/4 inches high). Repeat with remaining batter, spacing biscuits about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake until tops are golden brown and crisp, 12 to 14 minutes.

BRUSH biscuit tops with remaining 2 tablespoons melted butter. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 5 minutes before serving.

The batter made about 14-16 biscuits when I mistakenly doubled the buttermilk, and hence, had to double everything else, but they froze very well for another time. I also found a creative use for them when I decided to chop up 2-3 of them to make croutons for our salad the next night. I browned them with a little olive oil and salt in a skillet until they were crispy and crunchy and sprinkled on top. Yum!