Mama’s Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Grease a cookie sheet or 9×13 baking pan with 2 tablespoons bacon grease or oil; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine buttermilk, baking soda and about 3 cups of flour. Stir until combined and mixture is stiff enough to knead on a board, adding additional flour to reach kneading consistency.

Generously flour a bread board or counter top; scrape dough out onto floured board and knead 8-10 times, turning dough on the last kneading, smoothing and patting it out with your hand until it’s about 1 inch thick, no thicker.

Note: don’t overwork the dough. Better to under-knead than to over-work. The less you work the dough, the more tender the biscuits will be and the higher they will rise.

Using a biscuit cutter or a tomato sauce can with both ends cut out, cut biscuits and place into greased baking pan with sides touching. Knead trimmings and pat out dough, cutting more biscuits. As before, handle the dough as little as possible.

After all biscuits are in the pan, grease the tops of the biscuits with bacon grease or oil and place in the hot oven. Watch carefully, as different ovens get hotter, bake differently, etc.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, watching carefully. When biscuits are golden brown on top, check for done-ness by lifting the corner of one of the middle biscuits. If the top lifts and the inside is fluffy but not sticky, biscuits are done.

Remove from the oven and dump biscuits onto a wire rack, cloth-lined bread basket or onto a clean kitchen towel to cool a bit, then serve hot.

This recipe yields about 2 dozen biscuits according to the size and thickness of your biscuits.

Enjoy!

This is the same “recipe” for biscuits that my Mama made every day when I was growing up and until she died in April 2005 at the age of 76. Mama never had a recipe and I learned to make these biscuits by watching her, not from a recipe.