Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits

Why grab a cylinder of packaged biscuits from the grocery store to bake at home when you can whip up a batch from scratch in about the same amount of time? They're light years better than any brand you'll find and they'll taste even better knowing that you made them yourself! I made these biscuits to go with my clam chowder so I added some ingredients to go along with that but you can leave them plain or experiment with your own flavors. This recipe will make 8 biscuits.

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
¼ teaspoon of baking powder
A few cracks of freshly cracked black pepper
1 cup of buttermilk
6 tablespoons of very cold butter
The remaining ingredients are optional
¼ cup of shredded cheddar cheese
½ teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning
¼ teaspoon of garlic powder
¼ teaspoon of lemon zest
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped dill
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped parsley

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and the baking soda into a large mixing bowl. If you don't have a sifter just run a wire whisk through the dry ingredients to incorporate them and to make sure there aren't any lumps. If you have a food processor just add all the dry ingredients into the bowl fitted with a bald attachment to make these biscuits even quicker and easier. To the flour mixture - add the pepper, old bay seasoning, and garlic powder.
 
Cut the the butter into small chunks and add it to the flour. Using a pastry cutter, a whisk, a fork, or your food processor - work the butter into the flour until the mixture is very coarse and resembles corn meal. You'll still be able to see very small pieces of butter but that's what we're looking for. The trick to making a flaky biscuit is cold butter. When we place these biscuits in the oven, the butter melts and the steam from the melting butter is what gives us that desired flakiness in our biscuits. 

Next - add the lemon zest, chopped dill, chopped parsley, and the shredded cheese to the flour. Pour in the buttermilk and stir everything together just until everything is combined - don't over mix. You may need an extra splash or two of buttermilk if the dough appears on the dry side. It should be a very wet and a very sticky dough.

Sprinkle a little bit of flour on a clean and flat working space and scoop the dough out of the bowl. Be gentle with the dough here and don't roll it out. Put a little flour on your hands and gently pat the dough out so that it's about an inch thick or so. Fold the dough over and gently pat the dough back out. Do this 3 times and on the final fold pat the dough out again so it's about an inch thick.

Now use a round cutter to cut out the biscuits. Press down firmly to cut the biscuits. Cut the biscuits as close as possible to each other so we don't have a lot of leftover dough. We can combine the scraps back together but the texture won't quite be the same. Place the biscuits on the prepared cookie sheet and place them right next to each other. Place the biscuits in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.