Shirley Corriher’s ‘Touch of Grace’ Southern Biscuits
Impossibly light, yet rich. These Southern biscuits have butter, shortening, cream and buttermilk all in one bite.
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray
- 2 cups (9 oz./255g) spooned and leveled self-rising flour (low-protein Southern U.S. flour like White Lily or any self-rising flour)
- ¼ cup (1.8 oz/1g) sugar
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
- ¼ cup (1.6 oz/45g) shortening
- ⅔ cup (158 ml) heavy cream
- 1 cup (237 ml) buttermilk, or enough for dough to resemble cottage cheese (if you are not using low-protein flour, it will take considerably more than 1 cup)
- 1 cup (4.5 oz/127g) plain all-purpose flour, for shaping
- 3 tablespoons (1.5 oz/43g) unsalted butter, melted, for brushing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C and arrange a shelf slightly below the center of the oven. Spray an 8- or 9-inch (20 or 23 cm) round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together the self-rising flour, sugar and salt. Work the shortening in with your fingertips until there are no large lumps. Gently stir in the cream, then some of the buttermilk. Continue stirring in the buttermilk until THE DOUGH RESEMBLES COTTAGE CHEESE. It should be a wet mess – not soup, but cottage-cheese texture. If you are not using low-protein flour, this may require considerably more than 1 cup (237 ml) of buttermilk.
- Spread the plain (not self-rising) flour out on a plate or pie pan. With a medium (about 2-inch/5-cm, #30) ice cream scoop or spoon, place 3 or 4 scoops of dough well apart in the flour. Sprinkle flour over each. Flour your hands. Turn a dough ball in the flour to coat, pick it up, and gently shape it into a round, shaking off the excess flour as you work. Place this biscuit in the prepared pan. Coat each dough ball in the same way and place each shaped biscuit SCRUNCHED UP AGAINST ITS NEIGHBOR so that the biscuits rise up and don’t spread out. Continue scooping and shaping until all the dough is used.
