I always thought I was a fair baker, though my real passion has always been more toward cooking rather than baking. I think it has something to do with patience, or a lack of maybe? Filling a couple of dozen muffin cups and dropping numerous spoonful’s of cookie batter just isn’t very exciting for me. Maybe that is why I find more joy making pies rather than cookies or muffins.

An exception to this has been these biscuits. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I get great satisfaction while making them. And so does my family, when eating them. 

After moving to above 6000 feet in elevation, I had to re-adjust most of my baking skills. It was a frustrating thing to make a recipe I had made hundreds of times before suddenly end with less than favorable results. It took many mistakes to finally get something worth keeping.

For cookies, I discovered I needed to use both butter and shortening in order to stabilize them at higher elevations. For these biscuits, I can get away with using only butter as long as the butter is kept very cold and I bake them faster at higher temps. I also discovered that using cream of tarter helps offset the chemical taste that higher amounts of baking powder can sometimes create in baked goods. 

ALWAYS start with very cold butter cut into smaller pieces. A grater works great too!  

Add the butter to the dry ingredients. I like to use my pastry cutter at first but finish using my hands to pinch the larger butter pieces into the mix. This create beautiful slivers of goodness in each biscuit.

Add just enough cold buttermilk to bring the dough together. You don’t want to over work this dough or you’ll end up with a tougher biscuit . Keep that in mind as you proceed with the next step and handle gently and as little as possible.

Turn the dough out on a floured surface by folding it on top of itself 5-6 times. Basically, pat the dough into a rectangle, fold over, pat into a rectangle, fold over, etc.

This technique will create those fluffy layers we all love.

After the last fold, pat down to  3/4 – 1″ and cut out using a round biscuit cutter. When you cut each biscuit, do not twist the cutter. Instead, press straight down and lift off. Twisting your cutter will prevent your biscuit from rising to it’s potential.

When you have cut as many biscuits out as you can, bring the remaining dough back together can continue cutting.

Place each biscuit on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I usually like to keep a little space between each one to allow room for them to expand. But not too much or they may fall over during baking.

Immediately after you take them out of the oven, brush each biscuit with melted butter.

I love these biscuits straight out of the oven with butter and jam but my husband loves them served with sausage gravy.

They also make a wonderful strawberry shortcake!

Here’s a different spin on the blueberry muffin.  

Adding sweet strawberries to these perfectly balanced the bits of blueberry tartness. The real question is: Are these muffins or are these cupcakes?

You be the judge.