So. You’ve made butter and you’ve kept the buttermilk and you’re thinking, “Emily told me to keep the buttermilk but I can’t figure out why.” Here’s why:

Buttermilk biscuits. They’re flaky and tender and really, really easy to make. The recipe makes about 8 biscuits, unless you want them a little smaller. Let’s get into it:

The Recipe:

• 2 cups flour (plus a little more for dusting your work surface)
• 1T baking powder
• 1/4t baking soda
• 2t sugar
• 1t salt
• 6T cold butter, cubed
• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk
• A 450°F oven
• A food processor (or a pastry cutter and a cold house)
• A biscuit cutter in your size of choice (or a small cup to use as a cutter works)

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Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt together in food processor.

Pulse butter cubes into dry ingredients until you achieve the “small pea” state where it looks like pea-sized balls of butter are incorporated throughout the dough.

Next, while pulsing, stream in the buttermilk until you can see a dough just beginning to come together.

Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and press into a rectangle, incorporating all the scraggly bits. Fold the dough onto itself and press back into a rectangle, then fold the dough again and press back into a rectangle, ideally about half an inch tall. This folding process creates layers of flakiness which you want for biscuits.

You don’t want to work the dough too much. (Especially if you have hot hands or if it’s summer. The reason the butter needs to be super cold is because you want the butter to melt in the oven and make steamy little pockets in the dough. Also, you don’t really want to activate the gluten in the flour because you’ll end up with tough biscuits.) The point: try to get as many biscuits in the first batch as possible. But it’s fine to rework the scraps into biscuits once more. My batch was reworked twice and you couldn’t really tell in the end.

When cutting the biscuits, push the cutter straight down. Don’t twist it, otherwise they won’t rise properly. Alternatively, use a sharp knife to cut squares.

Place the biscuits on a parchment lined tray, touching each other, and bake for 14-16 minutes.

Serve warm (I mean, come on).

Your homemade butter and jam are always a great idea, but these don’t actually need anything!

Enjoy!