I’ve been contemplating setting up a program to automatically delete tweets after a certain amount of time. I don’t feel overwhelmingly compelled to do it—which is why I haven’t done it yet—but it seems like it might be a good idea at some point. For example, if I’m ever nominated for a cabinet position by a president who can’t find anyone better to fill that spot and I have to sit for confirmation by the U.S. Senate, I might not want them to know I hold some controversial opinions about the culinary value of Velveeta cheese, post a lot of pictures of my dog, and have an immoveable anti-Pepsi stance.
I mentioned the idea to Abby over Christmas Break, and she said, “You can’t delete your tweets! We’ll lose your biscuit recipe!” Last April, during the worst of the quarantine lockdown, I posted a thread on Twitter teaching folks how to make buttermilk biscuits like my Granny Cantrell did complete with pictures of the process. Turns out some of Abby’s college friends have been using the Twitter thread to make biscuits for their families. (Big shout out to her friend, Will, who made buttermilk biscuits over the holidays! Great job!) That tells me I need to get the biscuit-making directions down in a place more permanent than a year-old thread on my Twitter profile.
I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here, so if I have bear with me, but when I was 12-years-old, my dad sent me to his mother, Granny Cantrell’s, house and told me I couldn’t come home until I learned how to make biscuits like she did. We got in the kitchen every morning and practiced for about a week, and by the end, I could make biscuits almost exactly like hers.
She kept a ginormous yellow Tupperware bowl with a lid on her counter that was filled with flour that already had the shortening worked in. She made a well in the center, poured in however much buttermilk she wanted, worked up a little bit of dough by hand right there in the bowl, pinched off biscuits, and baked them. Afterwards, she put the lid back on the bowl and put it back in its corner on the counter for the next time she needed it. She set all that aside to start from the very beginning to teach me how to make them.
Biscuit-making is more art than science, which is weird for baking, and I’ve found if I try to measure ingredients instead of cooking by sight and feel the biscuits come out tough. Here is how to make buttermilk biscuits the Granny Cantrell way.
Step 1: Gather the ingredients.
There are only three ingredients in buttermilk biscuits: self-rising flour (White Lily if you can get it. If you can’t, bless your heart; you’ll just have to make do.), shortening, and buttermilk (preferably whole buttermilk). You can double or halve the recipe as you need to. Just keep proportions roughly the same.
Step 2: Add the shortening.
The basic recipe starts with two cups of flour to which you add what Granny called a “handful” of shortening. This is roughly 1/4 - 1/3 cup of shortening, give or take a bit.
Step 3: Work in the shortening.
Using a pastry blender (my method), two knives, or your fingers (Granny’s method), work the shortening into the flour until it resembles coarse ground cornmeal. When you run your fingers through it, it should feel a little silky, not dry like cornmeal.
Step 4: Pour in the buttermilk and stir.
You’ll end up using about a cup of buttermilk, but you want to start by pouring in a little less than you think you need and add more as you stir until you get a wet, sticky dough. Granny mixed her dough with her hands, so feel free to do that too if you feel so led.
Step 5: Shape the biscuits and put them in the pan.
If you want to be fancy, you can roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut nice little circles with a biscuit cutter. I don’t like to make any more mess than I have to, so I pinch off a bit of dough, depending on how big I want my biscuits to be, roll it into a ball, and pat it on the pan to the thickness I want. You’ll want to sprinkle some flour on the dough and keep your hands well-floured for this part, and I like to use all-purpose flour for this.
Step 6: Bake the biscuits.
Place the biscuits on a well greased or a parchment paper lined pan, and bake at 500 degrees for 8-10 minutes until the biscuits have browned a bit and sound hollow when you tap them on top.
Serve with butter, honey, ham, bacon, sausage, gravy, or whatever. Enjoy!
Granny’s recipe in a nutshell:
2 cups self-rising flour
Handful of shortening (1/4 - 1/3 cup)
Enough buttermilk to hold it together (about 1 cup)
Work the shortening into the flour and add enough buttermilk to make a wet, sticky dough. Shape the biscuits however you choose and place on a greased or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake at 500 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
A little Baptist humor. It’s funny ‘cause it’s true.
I love this so much!
Miss Erika is out-planking me for sure! #LifeGoals
Mars Rover Perseverance landed on the red planet last week. One cool thing about the touchdown video: the main parachute has a secret message. Puzzle-loving systems engineer, Ian Clark, spelled out “Dare Mighty Things” in binary with the orange and white strips of the parachute. Good luck and Godspeed Perseverance!
The weather has been glorious in Georgia this week! I hope you’ve had a chance to spend some time outside wherever you are. We got Stephen a telescope for Father’s Day last summer, and he’s been staring at the lovely and clear night sky a lot the past few days. He’s looked at Mars a bit but hasn’t been able to locate Perseverance. ;)
Until next time,
Karla
Biscuits!! As a person who has made a study of biscuits, I fully support this message. However, I prefer the taste of butter in my recipe instead of shortening. In my experience, if you place the biscuits so that they touch each other, they will rise better than if they are not touching. However, I think plenty of people like the flat, crispy biscuits too. Ha. I also use a large cookie scoop to make my biscuit “ball.”