Martha’s Buttery Sourdough Skillet Biscuits

Recently Martha taught us how to make buttery sourdough biscuits in a cast-iron skillet, which she says are, “Very delicious.” I agree and love them for, well, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The first step, of course, in making biscuits is to cut the butter into the flour. Combining 2½ cups of all-purpose flour and a ½ a cup of softened butter, she just mixes it together with her hands. She says that you might use “lard, but probably not oil, which just doesn’t make as good biscuits. It’s just the truth.

She also says that if you want to use cold butter in your stand mixer or food processor, that works great too. But she suggests, “Just cut it up into little pieces, especially if you’re doing it in a Bosch. Then just let it mix and it cuts in beautifully. If you do the beaters in your Bosch it’s amazing.”

But it is clear that she just like to get her hands in in the bowl to “squish the butter up all around, and pretty soon your flour starts to turn yellow.” As it take on a buttery look and yellow hue she says, “it’s okay to leave a few chunks of butter. I’m not the one that likes to make it completely crummy because I like to have little chunks of butter around inside my biscuit. That’s yummy.”

Once the butter is cut into the flour, well begin making a biscuit sponge that is going to “sit through the night, or through the day, whichever you like,” she says.

To begin the sponge sprinkel a tablespoon of sugar or honey, (if you want to use honey), and a cup of whole milk over the flour. Although Martha used almond milk, and she says, “you could even use water. It is totally up to your preference.”

To that add half a cup of activated start and “work this together with your hands,” she explains. Honestly folks, is there a recipe that Martha doesn’t use her hands to mix with ? “Begin working at the surface, then work down to combine the ingredients.Scrape around sides and work that in too just until there are no clumps of flour. “It doesn’t have to be perfectly done,” she says. “You just want all the flour to be wet as it sits for the fermentation.”

Then cover this and let it sit overnight, or for at least eight hours, and up to ten. She warns, “You don’t want to go any fewer than eight just to make sure that this gets fermented properly. “

In the morning or after eight hours, the dough will be pretty much doubled in size. At this point in a separate, smaller bowl stir the baking soda, salt and baking powder together. Then sprinkle this over the top if the sponge and knead it together a few times. She recommends using a quality salt, and then a teaspoon and a half of our baking powder that is aluminum-free. She suggested the Rumford brand.

She explains, “So we’re literally just sprinkling this powder mixture over the top, and then we’re going to knead it in with our hands, which will deflate the dough some. But right away it will kind of get a little bubbly on the surface as you’re mixing it in. And that’s the reaction of the acid from the sourdough and the alkaline from the baking soda.”

She suggests that you keep squishing the dough like we did with the salt , but that it doesn’t take a lot to work that in. “You just want to make sure that you can’t see any of the powders, maybe squish your fingers, turn it around and squish your fingers again, just to make sure that you have it mixed in,” she advises.

Then it is time to preheat the oven to 450°F (232°C) with your cast-iron skillet inside preheating too.

At this point, the oven should be preheated to 450°F (232°C) with a cast-iron skillet inside heating up too. And now you are finally ready to pat out the biscuits on an oiled counter into a square. She uses oil on her counter because as she explains, “we don’t want any unprocessed flour touching my biscuits.

You do need to use a biscuit cutter, just cut the dough with a bench knife into nine equal squares or if you like smaller biscuits, twelve. The take the skillet from the oven and melt three tablespoons of butter in the pan.

Quickly use this butter to coat both sides of each biscuit as you place them in the pan and back into the oven for 16–19 minutes at 450°F (232°C). “So you probably want to check them at about 16 minutes and see if they are browned. The reason I like the cast iron versus putting them on a baking sheet is usually by the time I leave it in long enough to brown the tops, the bottom is burned, but I don’t find that happening when I bake them in the cast iron skillet, it just gets an all around crispness.” After baking the biscuits, she says they are going to be a little less flaky than a typical biscuit, but brush them with more butter and serve them warm to raving diners.

Endnote: “It’s really fun to get used to cooking and skillets for when you go camping and you can bring your dough made beforehand. And because it has to sit and ferment, you’re not doing all of this extra work necessarily at the campsite. You’re bringing your sponge with you and then you’re mixing it up really quick and sticking it the skillet and baking an over your camp stove or putting it in a Dutch oven and cooking it over the briquettes. And then you’ve got beautiful biscuits for everyone to eat. So enjoy.”

When camping, dutch oven biscuits are a must like these baked by Kent Rollins, a chuckwagon cook who has cooked for traditional working ranches for over 20 years. And this is his advice when it comes to cutting out biscuits: “So, if you’re having trouble getting your biscuits to rise, you might try this easy trick the next time you’re making a batch! Don’t twist the cutter simply cut the biscuit out with one downward cut. When you twist the dough while cutting out the biscuit it can seal the outside edge of the dough and prevent the dough from rising.”

In the comment section below, tell us about your sourdough biscuits.