My husband and I are readers/subscribers of Bitter Southerner, to the point that he proudly sports a Make More Biscuits tee fairly regularly. (I’m a big fan of the Collards and Cornbread t-shirt he bought me for Christmas, too.)

The man loves buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy, so it’s not unusual for me to drag myself out of bed early on a weekend morning to make biscuits. Now that we’ve reached the age of impending decrepitude, I make the gravy with turkey sausage, skim milk or half & half, and sliced mushrooms for added nutrition.

But the biscuits? If you have ice cold butter, halfway decent flour, and buttermilk on hand, you, too, can be a weekend rockstar.

Buttermilk Biscuits

(makes about 10)

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (if you have access to White Lily, please use it for biscuits), plus more for dusting the board
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt (we were out, so I used pink Himalayan salt from Costco)
6 tbsp unsalted butter, very cold, and coarsely chopped, plus more for brushing (I keep some in the freezer for mornings like this)
1 cup buttermilk

Here’s where I’m going to get into trouble with the purists. While it’s perfectly fine to chop or grate your butter finely and mix it into your dry ingredients with a pastry blender, I like to use my food processor. My rationale is two-fold: the butter stays cold, which gives my biscuits that nice puff of fat that creates fluff, and it takes five minutes.

So preheat your oven to 350 degrees, place some parchment paper on a baking sheet, and fire up the food processor. You’ll begin by pulsing your dry ingredients a few times, and you’ll then add your butter. Process on low, and slowly add the buttermilk until the dough just comes together as a ball. Turn out onto a floured mat, and gently roll about 1/2″ high.

This is the important thing: fold your dough onto itself, and roll VERY lightly – this creates the layers you probably want. Using a cutter, cut your biscuits, being careful not to twist the cutter. Place onto the parchment-lined baking sheet, brush with melted butter, and bake for 11-13 minutes. You’ll know when they’re done, I promise.

When they’re removed from the oven, brush them one last time with butter, and enjoy being the Master of the Weekend Meal.