Baking Powder Biscuits | Tuesdays with Dorie

Baking Powder Biscuits! This is a quick post for a quick recipe.

I got home from work and was determined to make this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection from Baking with Julia, a wonderful baking book edited by Dorie Greenspan from Julia Child's PBS show of the same name. 

I cut the recipe in half, and used half butter and half shortening in place of all shortening. Within 30 minutes, I had seven wonderful little biscuits. I promptly ate three. One with butter, one with cheese, and one with butter and jam. I loved them.

Baking Powder Biscuits

Makes 7 biscuits.

Ingredients

1 C all purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp shortening

1 1/2 tsp unsalted butter

1/2 C milk

Melted butter for brushing the biscuits before baking

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F with a rack in the middle. 
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
4. Drop in the butter and shortening and coat them with the flour. 
5. Using your fingers, pick up the pieces of butter/shortening with your fingers, break the pieces apart, and drop them back in the flour. Continue to rub the flour and shortening/butter together until most of the shortening and flour are mixed, but there are still small visible pieces. 
6. Stir in the milk with a fork. The dough will be "messy." 
7. Sprinkle flour onto the counter and scrape the dough out of the bowl. Knead the dough ten times. 
8. Flatten the dough to about 3/8 inches thick and cut with a 2 inch round biscuit cutter. Gather the scraps together and flatten again to cut more biscuits. You should end up with 7 biscuits.
9. Brush the tops with melted butter and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until golden.