Biscuits

Page 505 of my ancient (1953!) version of The Joy of Cooking gets a lot of use. In fact, when I open the short, fat hardcover, it pretty much falls open there. It's the page for biscuits, which I make at least once a month on a Saturday or Sunday. The past two times, I've made the buttermilk variety, which tweeks the recipe slightly to add more butter and a little sugar.

I know you can get perfectly good biscuits out of a tube these days, but homemade biscuits are just so much better, and really not very hard. To eat them, we usually just split them open while they're warm and put homemade blackberry jam and honey on them. Last week, I made up some cheesy scrambled eggs and made a sandwich out of one of my biscuits. That was tasty too.

Here's what you need:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2-6 tablespoons butter (best at room temperature, so set it out ahead of time)
2/3-3/4 cup milk
rolling pin
baking sheet
drinking glass
fork or pastry cutter
spoon

Here's what you do:
- Pre-heat the oven to 425 F.
- Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. (you can add a little sugar if you like them a little sweet).
- Cut the butter into little chunks and add to the flour mixture. Use a fork (or a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour. Just keep working at it until there aren't any big chunks of butter and it's all evenly distributed.
- Pour in the milk and give it a quick stir so it all pulls together.
- Use your hands to shape the dough together but don't handle it too much.
- Turn dough out onto your countertop, dusted with a little flour. Roll out the dough with the rolling pin. (I like my biscuits pretty thick, but the thinner you roll, the more biscuits you'll get)
- Use the glass to take biscuit-sized plugs out of the dough and put them on a greased baking sheet. Re-roll the rest of the dough and cut out more biscuits until you can't get anymore. Keep in mind that the more you handle the dough, the tougher your biscuits will be - so be careful.
- Bake for 12 minutes, until lightly browned.
Enjoy with whatever toppings you want!