Appalachian Biscuits (Cathead Biscuits)
Big buttery biscuits, try these drenched in gravy or slathered with butter
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (level)
- ¾ cup Crisco, preferably Butter-Flavor packed into cup leaving few air pockets1
- 1 ⅔ cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F
- combine flour and baking soda. Add Crisco to flour mixture, and using a pastry blender, break up shortening until it resembles small peas.
- Add buttermilk one cup at a time, mixing well. Dough should be thick and moist.
- If you have parchment paper on hand, line cookie sheet with it for easier clean-up. Next, drop dough by about 12 heaping dollops onto well-floured cookie sheet.
- Flour top of dough. Using the palms of hands, gently flatten dough out to a jagged rectangle, about 1” thick.
- Next, dip a biscuit cutter or water glass rim into flour and cut out biscuits. You will need to dip the cutter in flour before cutting out each biscuit. Your batch of biscuits will have scraps of dough in between and on the edges. No need to remove these! The number of biscuits will vary, depending on the size cutter used. (A biscuit cutter 2 ½” in diameter will yield about 15 biscuits.)
- Bake for about 17 minutes on center rack, until biscuits are puffy and beginningto brown around edges. Turn oven on broil, move biscuits to top rack, and allow them to get golden brown on top. Watch carefully so as not to burn! Carefully go around biscuits with a butter knife before removing from cookie sheet with a turner.