Mom's Baking Powder Biscuits

These biscuits hold a special place in my memory, and they are delicious around the holidays! Do you have one of those foods that when you smell it, taste it, eat it, you get a warm fuzzy feeling in your core? Something that makes you think of childhood and comfort? For me, that’s my mom’s baking powder biscuits. You can make them plain and eat them with butter and jam, or you can jazz them up by adding... well, just about anything. For this batch, I added rosemary and cheddar cheese. Well actually, my brother added rosemary and cheddar cheese… I was busy making the rest of dinner so he took the lead on biscuit making for my birthday.

If you're not a rosemary fan, or if you're planning on making this many times, other tasty additions are jalapeño and cheddar, chives, blueberries, Herbs de Provence... if you think it would taste good in bread, give it a shot!

Ingredients

4 cups all purpose flour (if you're going for healthier, up to 1/2 of this can be whole wheat pastry flour)
2 tsp. salt
2 tbl. baking powder
2/3 cup shortening
2 cups milk

Optional:
2-4 tbl freshly chopped rosemary
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 450.

Step 1
In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Cut in shortening using a pastry cutter or two knives (most of the time I actually just use my fingers…)

Step 2
Make a well in the center of flour mix and pour in most of the milk (for those of you who like recipes to be more exact, leave out approximately ¼ cup). Stir in the milk with a fork until just blended. Add the remaining milk if needed – you know you need it if there’s still too much dry flour sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Step 3
Roll out the dough to 3/4 inches thick on a floured board. Using a round biscuit cutter (the diameter can vary based on your mood) cut out biscuits and place on a greased cookie sheet. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter, you can use an upside-down glass. Wine glasses work nicely because they typically have a thin edge, just don’t use too much force or they’ll shatter!

Step 4
Bake at 450 degrees until golden brown about 10-15 minutes.

Step 5
Slather with butter and gorge yourself. Or put them in a nice, pretty basket to share with your dinner guests – it’s really up to you!