The Key to the Flakiest Buttermilk Biscuits

[Claire Saffitz] Making biscuits is one one

of my favorite things to do in the kitchen.

And it's not really about the recipe,

'cause they are very simple,

it's about the technique for creating lots

of defined, flaky layers.

So today, I will show you how to make,

what I think is the best buttermilk biscuit.

(upbeat music)

This recipe only has a couple of ingredients.

It starts with all-purpose flour, three and a half cups.

Here at Bon Appetit in our test kitchen,

we use a method called scoop and level.

Two teaspoons of kosher salt.

Two and a half teaspoons of baking powder,

this helps give biscuits their rise

in addition to the layers.

Sugar doesn't really make these biscuits sweet,

but it does help give them color.

And I think, a little bit of sweetness helps

just kind of balance everything out.

And now finally, I have buttermilk in these biscuits,

which is an acid, and so, to react with the acid,

I include just a little bit of baking soda.

That's all the dry ingredients.

I'm gonna go to the fridge and get

my butter and my buttermilk.

To make it quick, I will use the food processor.

And this is similar to making pie dough,

I just want to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.

(grinding)

Pulse it a couple times to incorporate

all those ingredients and evenly distribute.

Back into the bowl.

All of these pieces of butter are

gonna get flattened out, and hey are going to

form little shelves between the flour.

And that's what creates the layers.

And I want that butter cold,

so it doesn't melt or dissolve into the flour.

I'm gonna bring it together by adding the buttermilk.

I just drizzle in slowly, and I kinda

move around the flour with a fork to evenly distribute.

You can see it's coming together into like,

craggy pieces and it looks really dry,

but that's okay.

I want to just knead this mixture

a few times to help bring it together.

And now again, I'm working pretty quickly,

so that the butter doesn't have time to warm up.

Pat it down into a square, more or less,

that's about an inch tall.

Take my bench scraper, or a knife,

and divide into four equal quadrants.

So just one right one top of the other.

Again, the mixture looks really dry,

but it's just 'cause the flour

hasn't really had a chance to hydrate.

I want to roll this out into a rectangle

that's, again, about an inch tall.

Now, I'm going to do something a little controversial,

which is I'm going to cut the biscuits

into squares, not rounds.

And I do this for a couple of reasons.

One, is that I don't have the scraps.

If you cut rounds, you have scraps leftover

and it's hard to re-roll.

And you never get the same definition

on the second time around.

Now, just to make sure that the butter's

really cold, 'cause this has been out

on my bench for a little while.

These will hang out in freezer for about

10 minutes before I brush them with butter and bake them.

These biscuits are pretty neutral in flavor.

If you wanted to serve them sweet,

you can sprinkle a little sugar on top.

Or, if you going savory, salt and pepper.

Okay, I've done all the tops.

These are ready to go into a 400 degree oven.

And they bake all the way through

at that temperature for about 20 minutes,

until the bottoms are very golden brown and

the tops are light golden brown.

So the water in the butter turned

to steam during baking and created

this great lift and rise in the biscuits.

So you can see all the layers.

And I want to eat them while they're still hot.

So I'm just gonna put a little bit of

honey and butter on these.

Not gonna mess them up.

Yeah, oh my god, it's really good.

(background chatter)

It's the biscuit line.

You can see it was just a couple

of ingredients and a little bit of

technique to make something really,

really impressive and easy.

So, thanks for watching.

I hope you make them at home.

(upbeat music)

It's pretty good.

No, focus on the biscuit.

(laughs)