Buttermilk Biscuits

It's Always Freezer Season

Even though I use frozen biscuits pretty often, it has never occurred to me to freeze ones that I made myself. Most recipes make more than I generally need at one time, but not so many that it feels "worth it" to freeze some. This recipe, however, makes a huge batch, so it was pretty easy to bake some immediately and still have plenty to freeze.

I find no loss in quality from freezing raw biscuits and baking them up from frozen. Many people say they actually bake up better that way, because the butter doesn't melt as quickly in the oven. I haven't tested them side by side myself, but I will say that, for me, biscuits baked from frozen are just as good as any cooked from a freshly mixed batch.

You may be able to find this recipe on the google books preview of the book (here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/It_s_Always_Freezer_Season/BZDwDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=buttermilk+biscuits+it%27s+always+freezer+season&pg=PA56&printsec=frontcover), but if you have a favorite biscuit recipe, you can very likely freeze that one the same way!

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:05]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with heather
[00:08]: today we're going to be making something
[00:10]: that usually i buy and i was at the
[00:12]: grocery store yesterday and realized
[00:13]: that oh i used my last uh
[00:18]: my last ones last weekend i really
[00:19]: should buy some more and then i
[00:21]: remembered
[00:22]: that we had this recipe
[00:25]: in this book
[00:26]: and i've been meaning to make it because
[00:31]: i buy these all the time
[00:33]: we're going to be making buttermilk
[00:35]: biscuits from it's always freezer season
[00:39]: by ashley christensen and caitlyn golan
[00:43]: i keep i generally buy frozen biscuits
[00:46]: because
[00:48]: my whole family my family doesn't
[00:50]: usually eat a whole batch of biscuits
[00:53]: and so making a whole batch of biscuits
[00:54]: in the morning is just kind of annoying
[00:56]: and the frozen ones are good
[00:58]: and actually they're better when you
[01:01]: cook them from frozen they they rise
[01:03]: nicely the butter stays
[01:06]: cold
[01:07]: and
[01:08]: it all works out
[01:11]: so i decided i might as well go ahead
[01:13]: and
[01:14]: make my own
[01:15]: frozen biscuits because that's what this
[01:17]: is we're gonna be baking up some of them
[01:19]: today
[01:20]: but usually i only we only need like
[01:23]: four to eight biscuits usually i make
[01:25]: about six and that's enough for our
[01:26]: family
[01:28]: so a whole batch of biscuits is ends up
[01:31]: with
[01:32]: a few
[01:33]: kind of
[01:34]: sitting around and maybe being eaten
[01:35]: later or going to waste
[01:37]: so
[01:39]: i'm making my own frozen biscuits
[01:41]: i've got my oven heating to 400 because
[01:45]: that's how we're we're going to bake the
[01:46]: ones we bake today and i've got a
[01:50]: baking tray with some wax paper on it
[01:53]: for the frozen ones because we're going
[01:55]: to freeze them until they are
[01:57]: solid at least four hours or overnight
[02:01]: and then i'll get
[02:02]: when we're ready i'll get the um
[02:06]: the other tray with parchment paper on
[02:09]: it or or just nothing usually biscuits
[02:11]: are okay
[02:13]: if you're as long as your baking tray is
[02:15]: you know decent
[02:17]: they don't usually stick but i still use
[02:18]: parchment paper
[02:20]: so
[02:21]: i have measured out
[02:23]: the flour this is self-rising flour i
[02:26]: personally like white lily
[02:28]: um i think it's a softer
[02:31]: flour a softer wheat
[02:35]: but that might not be available
[02:36]: everywhere but
[02:37]: she does call for self-rising flour
[02:40]: so i'm putting in some kosher salt
[02:44]: and we're going to mix this
[02:46]: uh up just to sort of distribute it well
[02:50]: and i use a whisk and that kind of gets
[02:52]: any
[02:54]: um
[02:58]: lumps out of it is kind of like
[03:00]: sifting it but easier
[03:03]: and i like easy
[03:06]: so there we go
[03:08]: mix that in i'm not worried about
[03:09]: getting flour on my surface because i'm
[03:11]: gonna have to put flour on it later
[03:13]: so i've got a lot of frozen unsalted
[03:17]: butter and i'm going to spend a little
[03:20]: while
[03:21]: um
[03:23]: grating this butter into
[03:27]: my flour and salt mixture
[03:30]: which is why it's frozen
[03:35]: because it will grate better
[03:38]: so you probably won't see all of this
[03:41]: but here we go we've done this once once
[03:44]: or twice before for our pastry crust i
[03:47]: think or for biscuits i forget but i'll
[03:49]: link those up here um
[03:52]: just so you can see i like the technique
[03:54]: pretty well
[03:56]: although it's a little
[03:57]: annoying
[03:59]: for a lot of it but
[04:08]: she does say to sort of stir it in as
[04:11]: you go
[04:13]: so i want to do that a little bit this
[04:14]: is much harder with this butter i think
[04:16]: i must have done this with just
[04:18]: refrigerator cold butter before
[04:29]: [Music]
[04:60]: okay
[05:01]: so
[05:03]: grating frozen butter was harder than
[05:06]: grating just cold butter out of the
[05:08]: refrigerator
[05:10]: so i called in uh the muscle
[05:13]: in this outfit and and he took care of
[05:16]: uh
[05:17]: most of it for me and then i put on my
[05:20]: cut proof glove to um
[05:23]: finish it up
[05:24]: now she does say to use a
[05:28]: pastry blender to distribute the butter
[05:31]: evenly in the flour and it should have a
[05:33]: pebbly texture i'm like
[05:34]: i feel like i've already got a pebbly
[05:36]: texture and i'm using my hand and it's
[05:40]: pretty pretty even in here
[05:43]: so i'm not gonna dirty my pastry cutter
[05:46]: because
[05:47]: i don't see a reason to
[05:49]: but
[05:50]: the only other ingredient that goes in
[05:53]: here is
[05:55]: a lot
[05:57]: of full fat buttermilk
[06:00]: so um
[06:02]: i'm supposed to pour this in and then
[06:04]: use my hands
[06:06]: to make a shaggy dough
[06:10]: so this is going to be a very
[06:13]: full
[06:14]: i'm going to do about
[06:17]: half first and get that mixed in because
[06:19]: this is a very
[06:21]: large
[06:23]: amount
[06:25]: of biscuit
[06:27]: dough
[06:29]: and my bowl while it is very large
[06:33]: it's going to be hard to mix it if i put
[06:34]: everything in at once
[06:38]: there we go
[06:40]: you do want to be careful and and and
[06:42]: not mix it too too much
[06:44]: because you don't want to make
[06:46]: your biscuits tough
[06:54]: but
[06:58]: now we're getting to shaggy
[07:01]: dough
[07:03]: [Music]
[07:14]: okay i think this
[07:18]: is good
[07:19]: it's a nice shaggy dough it's a little
[07:22]: bit
[07:23]: wet but we're going to pat this out on a
[07:27]: well floured
[07:29]: board so we're gonna end up putting a
[07:31]: little bit more flour in it um
[07:33]: i'm gonna
[07:35]: clean well move some stuff around and
[07:38]: uh get my assistant to flower my board
[07:41]: for me
[07:42]: with the same self-rising flour
[07:46]: so now i'm just going to turn this out
[07:50]: onto my well-floured
[07:55]: counter
[07:57]: and try to get as much
[07:59]: dough out of here as i can
[08:06]: it's very sticky
[08:10]: [Music]
[08:12]: anyway
[08:14]: that's good
[08:17]: and now i'm supposed to
[08:21]: carefully pat it into a loaf shape
[08:23]: incorporating more flour as needed until
[08:26]: the dough is not sticky and easy to
[08:28]: manipulate
[08:29]: so
[08:30]: i'm gonna have to get my other hand
[08:34]: into my flour
[08:36]: [Music]
[08:48]: i think
[08:49]: i think we're good i think we're good
[08:50]: now it's still a little bit sticky in
[08:52]: the center but i'm not going to worry
[08:54]: too much about that i am going to make
[08:56]: sure i have plenty of flour
[09:00]: under my dough because next we're going
[09:02]: to be
[09:04]: um
[09:08]: patting it out
[09:10]: and it is not that easy to manipulate so
[09:12]: maybe i was wrong
[09:15]: i don't want to work it too much though
[09:21]: all right
[09:25]: there's so much sticking to my hands
[09:27]: all right well
[09:30]: i think
[09:32]: i'm gonna call that good because i
[09:34]: really don't want to over manipulate my
[09:36]: dough and now we're patting it out into
[09:38]: a
[09:40]: three
[09:40]: quarter inch
[09:42]: thick
[09:44]: shape
[09:45]: it doesn't really matter what shape it
[09:47]: is we're just going to be um
[09:51]: cutting our
[09:53]: biscuits
[09:54]: out of this
[09:57]: um
[09:58]: we're about three quarters of an inch we
[09:60]: did get out the ruler because we had a
[10:02]: disagreement
[10:03]: um
[10:04]: and also i disagree with her about the
[10:06]: size of the biscuits she says to use a
[10:08]: two and a half inch
[10:10]: uh cutter
[10:11]: that seemed really small to me and i
[10:13]: would rather have this this is a three
[10:16]: inch circle cutter so we're going to use
[10:19]: this
[10:20]: i might make fewer biscuits out of it
[10:22]: but that's okay
[10:25]: so we're going to
[10:27]: cut out our biscuits as many as we can
[10:30]: pushing straight down and not turning so
[10:56]: now that i've got a line i'm gonna very
[10:58]: carefully transfer these
[11:01]: over to my
[11:03]: this is my freezing sheet
[11:06]: where i have
[11:08]: wax paper and we don't want these to
[11:10]: touch because we want them to be all
[11:12]: individually
[11:14]: frozen
[11:16]: so we're going to try to space these out
[11:18]: as much as we can
[11:20]: and i might end up needing another one
[11:21]: we'll see
[11:23]: [Music]
[11:39]: so
[11:40]: we've gotten a dozen and a half so far
[11:43]: but now we need to re-roll
[11:45]: the extra bits
[11:47]: and make sure that we have
[11:49]: enough flour on our board
[11:52]: so that it doesn't stick
[12:01]: supposed to gently form this into a ball
[12:03]: which is what i've been trying to do
[12:06]: there we go
[12:09]: not too bad
[12:11]: and then then pat it out
[12:14]: three quarters an inch thick
[12:17]: [Music]
[12:29]: there we go
[12:30]: so we're going to bake these
[12:33]: fresh ones for
[12:35]: um
[12:36]: she says
[12:39]: 10 to 13 minutes
[12:42]: yes from room temperature or
[12:45]: um from frozen more like 15 minutes my
[12:48]: biscuits always take longer to get brown
[12:50]: on top like i like them so i just i just
[12:53]: go by color honestly
[12:56]: but with my three inch cutter i got the
[12:59]: 24 that she says this
[13:01]: recipe makes so that's okay what i'm
[13:04]: going to do is just sort of form these
[13:06]: into hand biscuits and bake them with
[13:08]: the rest that we're baking today
[13:13]: these will be more freestyle
[13:21]: so i'm gonna put these in the freezer
[13:24]: um like i said at least four hours or
[13:26]: overnight i'll probably go overnight and
[13:29]: i'm gonna clean this up i'm gonna bake
[13:31]: the biscuits we're gonna have today and
[13:33]: i'll show you what those look like in
[13:34]: just a minute and let you know what we
[13:36]: think
[13:37]: [Music]
[13:46]: on this episode of cooking the books
[13:48]: with heather you watched me make
[13:49]: buttermilk biscuits from it's always
[13:51]: freezer season
[13:53]: and i
[13:55]: have not yet tried them
[13:56]: from the freezer they're still
[13:58]: actually freezing i haven't put them in
[14:00]: a zip zip top bag yet
[14:03]: so
[14:04]: i did not bake them from frozen but i do
[14:07]: that all the time and i don't think that
[14:08]: these will be any
[14:10]: different
[14:11]: um
[14:12]: i do think i may have made a mistake
[14:15]: choosing a larger biscuit cutter because
[14:18]: they did
[14:19]: puff up rather a lot so they were a real
[14:22]: relatively large biscuit with three inch
[14:24]: biscuit cutter that i used not that we
[14:26]: have a problem with that
[14:28]: and they did end up taking
[14:30]: a lot longer to bake even from room
[14:32]: temperature
[14:34]: than she said so she says uh like 10 to
[14:37]: 13 minutes mine always take at least 20
[14:40]: minutes and then i usually move them to
[14:41]: the top rack
[14:43]: after i think they're almost done just
[14:45]: to get them browner i
[14:48]: do sometimes
[14:50]: um brush them with heavy cream just to
[14:53]: help them get
[14:54]: brown
[14:55]: uh get a little bit browner because the
[14:59]: um
[15:00]: the fat in that i think helps with that
[15:04]: i didn't with this these ones but they
[15:06]: still ended up brown but i think it took
[15:08]: me more like
[15:09]: 25
[15:10]: to 30 minutes to bake them but they are
[15:13]: they were larger whatever
[15:16]: so there are a couple other options for
[15:18]: this recipe to freeze them
[15:21]: to make them differently or to freeze
[15:22]: them differently so
[15:24]: you can make them as buttermilk
[15:26]: dumplings or miyoki
[15:28]: basically you just cut them into small
[15:30]: squares freeze them like that and then
[15:32]: there's a recipe for
[15:34]: chicken and dumplings using those
[15:37]: um which sounds delicious and we might
[15:40]: have to do that
[15:41]: another time because we didn't freeze
[15:43]: any of ours that way
[15:44]: um she also has a recipe for orange
[15:47]: biscuits where you add some orange zest
[15:49]: and then you make um i think you add
[15:51]: some sugar
[15:53]: anyway it's a little bit different for
[15:55]: the base recipe before you freeze it and
[15:57]: then you um make an orange glaze to go
[16:00]: over them those sound absolutely
[16:02]: delicious
[16:03]: uh
[16:04]: to me
[16:06]: but i haven't made them yet and also you
[16:09]: can make sausage and cheese biscuits
[16:11]: where you
[16:12]: cook some sausage and mix that with some
[16:16]: cheddar cheese
[16:17]: into the biscuit dough before you cut
[16:19]: them out that sounds a lot to me like a
[16:23]: sausage cheese ball except in a larger
[16:25]: biscuit form so
[16:28]: we've made sausage cheese balls before
[16:30]: on this uh
[16:31]: channel from vivian howard's cookbook i
[16:35]: think her recipe is a little different
[16:36]: than the one i normally use but
[16:40]: sausage cheese balls are a big thing in
[16:42]: the south sausage biscuits are also a
[16:44]: pretty big big things here in the south
[16:47]: but it would be i think these would be
[16:49]: an interesting thing for us to have on
[16:51]: hand around the holidays because that's
[16:53]: what we usually do sausage cheese balls
[16:55]: i'd like to see how they compare
[16:59]: to our usual sausage cheese balls
[17:01]: although my husband likes them very
[17:02]: small and this would be very different
[17:04]: than that
[17:05]: but
[17:08]: anyway
[17:09]: i'm very excited that i will have my own
[17:13]: pre-frozen biscuits
[17:15]: to make and the biscuits themselves were
[17:18]: very
[17:19]: uh
[17:20]: puffy they puffed up nicely they were
[17:22]: very brown they were very tender even
[17:26]: though the ones that we baked today were
[17:28]: either
[17:29]: a the first re-roll or even a second
[17:32]: re-roll
[17:35]: they were still really tender they kind
[17:37]: of fell apart a little bit they didn't
[17:38]: hold together really well but you know
[17:40]: you want a biscuit to be tender you
[17:42]: don't want it to be
[17:43]: uh super
[17:45]: glutinous so
[17:47]: you don't want to be like bread you want
[17:48]: it to be soft and tender
[17:50]: because that's what a biscuit is
[17:53]: so
[17:54]: i'm really excited to have these and i
[17:56]: hope you will try them yourselves and if
[17:58]: you do let me know in the comments down
[18:00]: below what you think
[18:02]: and if you enjoyed watching me make this
[18:03]: please give me a thumbs up hit the
[18:05]: subscribe button and come back and watch
[18:07]: me make something else next week
[18:10]: [Music]