Fluffy Breakfast Biscuits

My oldest daughter started ice skating lessons last week.  Never in my life did I anticipate an ice skating lesson being so downright hilarious!  Picture about 25 kids ranging in age from 4-7 all lined with bright red walkers slowly inching their way down the ice.  Every sound of metal clanging meant another kid down and an instructor would come swooping in from behind to stand them upright.  It was just a massive chaotic scene of wobbly legs, and jello-like ankles that contributed to piles of shivering children attempting to detangle their skates and walkers.  My sister and I laughed so hard that by the end we were getting dirty looks from half the parents in the room.  I’m horrible, I know, but if you had to sit on metal bleachers for an hour in a refrigerator I guarantee you would be trying to find some humor in it too.

The great part of having your children enrolled in physical activity after school?  They crash hard when they get home and sleep right until you wake them up the next morning 🙂  It’s worth every penny.  So they also deserve a good hearty breakfast.

My favorite breakfast (other than sticky buns) is fluffy biscuits with sausage gravy.  It’s just so filling and scrumptious, it just starts a cold day out right.  It took me a while to get to a good biscuit; I’ve tried everything from butter to shortening to oil to buttermilk to different leavenings but I finally got to these!  Once you get the butter-cutting technique down it doesn’t take long to whip these up in the morning.  These are buttery, light and fluffy with a flaky crunchy top.  Perfect for gravy or just a smear of butter and jam.

Fluffy Breakfast Biscuits
Yields approximately 16 (2 inch) biscuits

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 1/4 cup milk, cold

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees (F).  In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.  Add the butter and cut in with 2 knives, a pastry blender or your fingers until the mixture resembles course crumbs and the largest pieces are no bigger than the size of small peas.  Add the 1 1/4 cup milk all at once and mix with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon just until combined.

2. Knead the dough in the bowl 2 or 3 times, folding the dough over itself, just into a rough ball and then transfer to a lightly floured surface, cover with plastic wrap or parchment paper, and roll or pat out to 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into 2 inch rounds with a biscuit or cookie cutter dipped in flour.  Make sure to push the cutter straight down and pull back up without twisting so that the biscuits will rise evenly.  Place the rounds on a baking sheet and brush with melted butter.  (You can re-roll the scraps once, any more than that and you risk kneading the dough too much and you’ll end up with tough biscuits) Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown on top and a deeper golden brown on the bottom.