Buttermilk Pan Biscuits

Until I moved to the South, the only fast food restaurant that I ever remember with biscuits on the menu was Kentucky Fried Chicken. 🍗As a kid, Kentucky Fried Chicken was usually reserved for road trip meals and you wouldn't believe how excited I would get about that bucket of greasy goodness.  (It almost made riding backwards in a station wagon for hours at a time, seem tolerable. 😂)  The crunchy fried chicken was a highlight of any road trip but the flaky, buttery biscuits was what I devoured first.  

Now that I live in Georgia, I pass multiple biscuit centered fast food restaurants on an almost daily basis.  Popeyes, Bojangles Famous Chicken n' Biscuits, Mrs. Winner's Chicken and Biscuits and Chick Fil' A.   I'm not sure whether biscuits are more regionally acceptable in the South or if they've just increased in popularity over the last 15 years but I suspect that the it's not the latter.  Southerners LOVE biscuits!  Giant, flaky, buttery, Cat-head biscuits.  

If I'm being totally honest, as an adult I don't order a lot of biscuits at restaurants.  (Not even KFC) It's not that I don't like them, I just try and make healthier choices for breakfast - on most days. There are those mornings when I just NEED a biscuit though.  My biscuit cravings are not something that I can plan for or even predict so it's a good thing that I keep these simple biscuit ingredients stocked in my kitchen.  When that biscuit craving hits, I can have fresh, flaky, buttery biscuits on the table (and in my belly) in under an hour.  

If you are a biscuit fan or if you just get weird and unpredictable biscuit cravings like me, you need to give these buttermilk pan biscuits a try.  Baking biscuits in a cast iron pan promotes those deliciously crispy edges and perfectly golden browned bottoms.  I don't want to brag, but these biscuits might just be even better than my beloved KFC biscuits.  

Buttermilk Pan Biscuits
12 Tablespoons butter
4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups buttermilk

Grease a 9" square cast iron pan with 1 T. butter.  

Cut 10 T. butter into 1/2" pieces and freeze 15 minutes. 

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

Add chilled butter and and combine with fingers until pea sized pieces. 

Stir in buttermilk with a rubber scraper.

Transfer dough to greased pan. 

Pat dough evenly and cut into 9 squares.

Bake 30 minutes at 450.

Let cool in pan 5 minutes.  Transfer to rack.  Brush with 1 T. butter.  

I turned our biscuits into dinner by adding some chicken tenders.  

What kind of biscuit eater are you?  Do you like to slather those fluffy layers with a pat of butter or a dollop of jam?  Do you prefer a drizzle of honey or a healthy dose of sausage gravy or sandwiched with breaded chicken?  I'd love to know how you enjoy your buttery biscuits.  Send me a comment and let me know.  

Ciao!

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