Finally! Biscuits!

So I have a leetle beety secret to share with you.

Up until recently, I had never conquered making biscuits!

I know, right? Like, how can I make a bunch of scones but not a biscuit?? Crazy!

But scones tend to have individual recipes. You know, step by steps. Biscuits, on the other hand, I've always found tricky. Mostly because all the recipes I had required buttermilk and I didn't want to hafta use buttermilk because honestly...who has the budget to buy buttermilk just for biscuits! Besides, my mama has never had to use buttermilk to make biscuits. But my mama also never had to use a recipe, either. Just toss a few things in the bowl, mix it up, cut it out, toss it in the oven and voila! Yummy biscuits.

I, on the other hand, live and breathe by recipes. I don't know that I'll ever be a "toss a few things in a bowl" kind of baker. I like measurements and instructions. How much of this or that and how to know when it's mixed right.

That's why finally learning to make biscuits that look and taste like and are as easy to make as Mama's is such a big honkin' deal to me. Like, jazz hands, the snoopy dance and a Hallelujah chorus big.

So, how did I come across this miraculous recipe? It was printed on the back of a bag of Martha White self-rising flour, of all things! Can you imagine? hehehe

Truth is, I had a fresh batch of tomatoes the folks had sent home with me and I was desperate to eat one in a biscuit. The only frozen biscuit I had was so old it was growing ice crystals so I was determined to figure out a biscuit. I knew it had to be no more difficult than a scone, right? But I also knew that mama never used AP flour for her biscuits so I dragged out the little bag of self-rising that was hiding in a crisper draw of the fridge, determined to exeriment until I got it right.

And yes. I keep my flours in the refridgerator. One reason being that it keeps the stuff fresh but mostly it's because back when I lived in the lakehouse I had ant problems and once lost an entire bag of flour and a bucket of sugar (I used to keep sugar in an old plastic ice cream bucket. REDNECK!! haha) to the ants. Ever since then, flour gets stored in the fridge and sugar in an air tight glass container.

Anyway, back to the biscuits...fortunately, that bag of flour saved me a lot of frustration and experimentation because the recipe I found was so stinkin' easy I could almost shoot myself for taking so long to figure it out. It is as follows:

2 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
About 3/4 cups milk

Cut shortening into flour until it resembles course crumbs (kinda like butter in scones...duh!) Slowly mix in milk until moistened and slightly tacky. Kneed lightly and roll out into an inch thick round. Cut in desired size and bake at 450* for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden.

It worked beautifully and my tomatoes?? They got et up!