You have not lived until you have tasted one of these biscuits!  Just think of soft warm bread with the slight tang of buttermilk topped with a your favorite jelly or just a pat of butter….they’re good!

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup  vegetable shortening
3 Tablespoons butter cut into small cubes
2 to 2 1/4  cups buttermilk or enough to form a soft dough
melted butter for brushing on top of biscuits

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Lightly spray or grease 2 round cake pans or one large baking sheet pan, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with a whisk until well blended . Cut in shortening  and butter with pastry cutter until it is the size of peas. Add 2 cups buttermilk and stir. Slowly add more buttermilk (if needed).  Dough will be sticky.

Generously flour a piece of waxed paper or cutting  board and turn your dough out onto it.  Do not kneed. Simply dust the top lightly with flour and pat dough out to 1/2 to 3/8 inch thickness.  You can roll the dough out with a rolling pin if you prefer.  Cut biscuits with a biscuit cutter and place onto a greased baking pan. Be sure to place biscuits so that they touch each other in the pan.  This helps them rise higher as they push up against each other. Brush lightly with butter to help with browning. Bake in the oven for roughly 20 to 25 minutes or until top is lightly browned. Remove to serving dish as soon as they come out of the oven. Makes approximately 20 biscuits depending on the thickness of your dough when you cut them out.

~Marsha Bradford

* In the south there are two kinds of milk…buttermilk and sweet milk.  Sweet milk is just regular milk.

** One of the best pans to bake biscuits in is a round cake pan or sheet cake pan.  I generally use a sheet cake pan. If you pan is dark you may want to line it with aluminum foil to prevent the bottom of your biscuits from getting burned.