3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks
1 cup blueberries, patted dry
1 to 1 1/3 cup buttermilk
Instructions
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Cut in butter using a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers, until mixture resembles wet sand. Stir in blueberries, making sure they get coated with flour mixture. Stir in 1 cup buttermilk, taking care to incorporate the dry ingredients well while not crushing the blueberries. Add more buttermilk as needed to form into a cohesive dough.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle. Fold once, pat again, and fold again. Repeat as needed for dough to look smooth but not be overworked. Pat into a rectangle or circle and cut out biscuits. Reshape as needed to cut out remaining dough.
Place biscuits on a baking sheet, slightly separated, and freeze while preheating the oven to 425°F.
Once the oven is ready, bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Serve warm with butter or with sweet biscuit icing drizzled over the top.
YIELD: 12 SERVING
SWEET BISCUIT ICING
yield: 1/2 CUP
ingredients
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
instructions
In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, and vanilla. Add extra milk as desired for preferred consistency. Drizzle or spread icing onto cooled baked goods.
NOTES
You can use wild blueberries in this recipe. Because they are smaller, the berries get more dispersed, and are less likely to crush to bits when shaping. If you can’t find wild blueberries, you can use regular blueberries. Take care when mixing to keep them as intact as possible.
Frozen berries that are thawed work well. Thawing is key in order to remove any excess liquid that might come out during baking, which can affect the biscuits.
Be sure to dry the blueberries as best you can before mixing in to the dough. Pat them dry with paper towels after letting them drain in a colander.
Adding the blueberries before the buttermilk will also help preserve their shape. Stir them gently to coat with a layer of flour before stirring in the liquid.
Biscuits benefit from being worked as little as possible. You don’t want to develop the gluten too much, which can make them chewy, but you also want layers!
When you dump the dough out onto your floured surface, carefully bring it together into one lump with your hands. Pat the dough into a rectangle, then fold, pat down again, and fold again. You can use a rolling pin if you don’t want to use your hands.
If you want square biscuits, pat the dough into a rectangle, using a bench scraper (if you have one) to square off edges. Then simply cut to the desired size.
For round biscuits, you can typically use a 2-inch or 2 ½ inch cutter. Pat the dough to between ¼ and ½ inch high, then cut out biscuits.
Cutting the biscuits as close together as possible will reduce re-shaping work, so take some time to choose your placement!
Gather up the scraps and push them together to form one piece again, then fold and pat down to cutting thickness. Repeat until you’ve used as much dough as possible.
You usually end up with one “mini” biscuit from the last scraps!