Southern Biscuits

When I decided to make Chicken and Sausage Gumbo for New Year's Eve dinner, Bret suggested that we make biscuits to eat with the gumbo.  This seemed like a simple enough request and we found an easy Food Network recipe for Southern Biscuits. 

First, we gathered the ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1 cup buttermilk, chilled

The biscuits were super easy to make:

• Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• Using your fingertips, rub the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a crumbly dough.
• Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk.  Stir just until the dough comes together.  The dough will become very sticky.
• Turn dough onto a floured surface.  Dust the biscuit dough with flour and gently fold the dough over five or six times.
• Press the dough into a one-inch thickness and cut out the biscuits with a two-inch cutter.  We didn't have a cutter so we used a wine glass instead.
• Place the biscuits on the baking sheet until they just touch and bake for about fifteen minutes, until the biscuits are tall and golden on top.

This simple recipe did not fail us and were awesome with a pat of butter and used to sop up the gumbo!