Meemaw’s Buttermilk Biscuits

Tender, flaky Southern buttermilk biscuits built on frozen butter, low-protein White Lily flour, and a few book folds for layers. My grandmother’s recipe, now Zach’s Sunday ritual.

Ingredients

2 cups White Lily flour or other low-protein flour
1 cup full-fat buttermilk add slowly; you may not need all of it
10 tbsp butter frozen
3 tsp kosher salt using table salt? cut to half or less
3 tsp baking powder

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425°F, and let it keep heating 10–15 minutes past temperature so the oven walls are good and hot, not just the air.
Freeze the butter, then cut it into very small cubes. If it softens while you cut, put it back in the freezer while you handle the dry ingredients and measure the buttermilk.
Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Rub the frozen butter into the flour with your fingers until you have lots of little flour-and-butter lumps, pea-sized or smaller (they don’t all have to match).
Add the buttermilk slowly, just until you have a shaggy, slightly wet dough. Sometimes that’s the full cup, sometimes a little less.
Turn the dough out onto a well-floured cool surface (cool, not the counter over a running dishwasher or beside the hot oven).
Knead a couple of times, just enough to bring it together; don’t overwork it or the biscuits turn tough.
Roll into a rough rectangle. Fold it into thirds, then fold that closed like a book.
Roll out flat again, then repeat the thirds-fold and the book-fold. Do this 6 or 7 times to build flaky layers. You’re done when the dough is no longer sticky but still soft.
Any time the dough feels warm or you see butter starting to melt, put it in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up.
After the final fold, cut biscuits with a sharp biscuit cutter (press straight down, don’t twist). Gather the scraps, fold, and cut a couple more; they won’t be quite as fluffy, but they’ll still taste good.
Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake about 20 minutes, until risen, flaky, and beginning to brown on top.

Notes

Buttermilk. Full-fat if you can get it; the richer the buttermilk, the better the biscuit. We use Southern Swiss Dairy, a Georgia Grown creamery whose creamline buttermilk is the good stuff.
Salt. This is written for kosher salt, which is all I use. If you’re working with regular table salt, cut it to half or less, or your biscuits will come out salty.
Cut clean, don’t twist. Use a sharp biscuit cutter and press straight down; don’t twist it, and never use a water glass or anything with a dull rim. A pinched, sealed edge won’t rise. No biscuit cutter? No shame in square biscuits; just cut the rolled dough with a very sharp knife.
Flour. White Lily, for the reasons above. If you must substitute, find the lowest-protein flour you can (around 8 percent).
A truly hot oven. Preheat fully, then give it another 10 to 15 minutes after it beeps. You want the oven walls hot, not just the air inside; that first blast of heat is what sets the rise.