Bread Bible’s Classic Buttermilk Biscuits with Thyme

I am almost ready to review The Bread Bible by Beth Hensperger published by Chronicle Books! I had some extra buttermilk from making my gingerbread pancakes and wanted to use it up so I decided to make some biscuits to go with the carrot ginger soup I made the other day.

Whisk together 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp salt.

Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in 6 tbsp of of cold butter (3/4 stick) until it breaks down into small pieces.

Add 1 large egg and 3/4 cup of cold buttermilk. I also added some freshly chopped thyme because I love it!

The dough, “…should be slightly shaggy, but not sticky.”

I would say that is shaggy and not sticky. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times until it holds together. Roll out into a rectangle no more than 3/4″ thick.

I do not have a 2 1/2″ biscuit cutter so I used this 2″ wide juice glass instead to cut them out. Make sure to push down and not twist!

Give the biscuits some room and bake in a 425F preheated oven. Since mine were smaller I only baked them for about 12 instead of 15-18 minutes, until they were golden brown.

These were good biscuits but a tad dry. I know, biscuits are supposed to be dry but these were really dry. They did get all flaky and naturally opened up in the middle so you could easily add some butter which was impressive.

This particular recipe was written clearly and had all sorts of ideas on how to make these biscuits yours which I appreciated, “Consider this recipe a springboard to infinite flavor possibilities.” I like that!

The authors writes that the proportion of wet to dry ingredients will ensure a dough that will bake high and be crisp-crusted which it does. Which is impressive. I give this recipe four out of five wooden spoons.

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