The story goes that I ate 10 biscuits that morning. I don’t remember the number and I think that’s beside the point, because what I do remember is that my young teenager self thought that maybe, she didn’t actually sleep over at her friends house and maybe, in fact, was in breakfast paradise. Those were the butteriest (but light!), fluffliest, flakiest biscuits I had ever tasted and I’ve been waiting since 7th grade to come across them again. A few years ago, I embarked on a search for my dream biscuits, desperate to find a recipe that would become my go to. After trying and tweaking recipes every weekend for a year, I found the winner (no tweaking necessary!): Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Biscuits by Samin Nosrat. Best Biscuits Ever.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Biscuits
If you buy one cookbook, no, if you buy one book this year, make it this one? It’s basically a how to cook book. This is a gem to go through. The book starts with thorough lessons on Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat and how those elements make or break cooking, and then it ends with a beautiful recipes section to work through!
I wish I could offer you one of these biscuits right now. They are light (even though they are basically made with butter, cream, and flour) and the layers are tender and the flavor is rich and tangy from the buttermilk. You obviously should spread some butter on, letting it melt a little before you have that first taste. That’s the way my kiddos like them.
When I read the recipe for these biscuits, I was so desperate to make them but I didn’t have a stand mixer. I told my friend my delima and out of the kindness of her heart she called me over to her house last autumn. With 5 kids between us, happily playing in the yard (for now), my friend, her mama, and I got to work in the kitchen. It felt like magic, watching through the oven and seeing the dough rise tall and turn golden brown. When I tasted and realized these were the biscuits from 7th grade, I was so happy I could *almost* block out the sight of our kids “ruining” them in chocolate syrup and whipped cream.
Let’s Make Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Biscuits
Grab your mixer, or your friend who has a mixer, and lets get started!
This is such an interesting recipe! You might question some of the steps, but just trust! Samin says and so we do. You add your flour and half the chilled butter and mix until the flour is the consistency of sand. See?
Add the rest of the butter and mix again until the large pieces of butter are the size of peas. At this point, depending on how warm my kitchen is, I’ll put the bowl into the freezer for 10 minutes before I get my hands into the flour! This is one of my favorite parts. You take the larger pieces of butter and flatten them between your fingers (quickly now!) and you imagine all the flaky layers this will make in your biscuits.
After you mix the cream and buttermilk in you’ll take your dough to a floured surface and pat it out into a rectangle so you can start folding it over. It’ll look shaggily suspect but just go with it.
You’ll fold. Fold again. Fold again. The dough will start to become smooth, almost like play dough. If it isn’t, pat it out and fold again.
Until you get this. It’ll be soft to work with. You’ll roll the dough out and start cutting some Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat beauties out!
Per my not having a stand mixer, you can imagine how I wouldn’t have a biscuit cutter either. Well, friends, I splurged the $4 and got one. Life changing. It’ll help so much. Wipe it out between each cut and that’ll help each biscuit stand tall and proud.
We’re getting so close now. Brush with cream and lets bake, lets bake, lets bake.
Freezer Instructions for Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Biscuits
With school starting up here, I am planning on making a few batches and keeping them in my freezer. We can have fresh biscuits to go with our eggs in the morning for some comfort breakfasts. Hoping this will help get my oldest sleepyhead out of bed. She struggles to get up early and it’s even harder during the dark and cold Minnesota autumn and winter mornings, I’m hoping biscuits help. Freezing is easy. Just freeze unbaked biscuits and after they are solid, store in a plastic bag. Brush some cream on the tops and bake from frozen.
And top with butter. And honey. OR neither. These pretties can stand on their own for sure.
[tasty-recipe id=”2079″]
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