Amish Heritage

Amish Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits

These Amish fluffy homemade biscuits are absolutely the Best! Just ask my kids. It took me a while before I found a biscuit recipe that I loved. But once I mastered these, I knew I finally had the perfect Amish biscuit recipe.

They are just so good, especially freshly baked. And these buttermilk biscuits never last long at my house. I can make a pile of them, but they are gone very quickly.

I make Amish biscuits a lot, especially in the winter. As they are the perfect addition to any meal and go especially well with soup or stew. Click here for an amazing stew recipe

Old-fashioned Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Frequently I’ll make sausage gravy and biscuits because my family loves this for breakfast. I don’t cook breakfast every day, and most of the time everyone is responsible to get their own food.

But years ago we started a tradition, where I cook a large breakfast on Saturday mornings. Actually, it would be more of a brunch meal because Saturday mornings are good for sleeping in. But these Amish fluffy homemade biscuits and sausage gravy have found their way to our table quite often on Saturday mornings.

Although the last number of months I have been working on Saturdays, and I miss not being at home with my family for our Saturday morning brunch.

So my husband has taken over doing the cooking on Saturday morning, and he tends to stick to the few dishes he has mastered. I give him credit for trying to make biscuits and gravy once, but he may need a few tips on getting the biscuits fluffy.

An Amish Cook – Amish biscuits

If you ever get to watch an Amish (or ex-Amish) lady while she’s cooking, you may notice that she doesn’t really do a lot of exact measuring or follow a recipe. Part of the reason may be that she’s already made this dish so many times that she has a feel for it.

Years ago most women did more cooking from scratch than they do nowadays. Recipes would ask for a handful of this or a pinch of that. And this is still somewhat how a lot of Amish women cook.

I tend to tweak or make my own recipes by just putting together ingredients that I know pair well. So if I want to share a recipe, I have to make it first and consciously measure everything.

We also tend to not give detailed instructions because we think everyone would know how to do it. But sadly, many people are not privileged enough to grow up having their mom teach them how to cook.

And this is part of the reason that Amish kids only go to school through eighth grade because it is more important that they learn how to work. The girls need to know how to cook, clean the house, sew, garden, etc. before they get married.

How to make Amish fluffy homemade biscuits

Measure dry ingredients into a bowl. Cut cold butter into chunks and add to dry ingredients.

Using a pastry blender (or your hands if you don’t have a blender) cut butter until crumbly. It’s okay if there are still small pea-sized pebbles remaining.

For years, I used my hands to crumble the butter because I didn’t think spending money on a pastry blender was necessary. But I finally decided to buy one, and now I don’t want to be without it. It really is a convenient tool for making biscuits, scones, pie dough, or any kind of pastry.

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Do not overmix biscuit dough

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, add buttermilk. If you don’t have any buttermilk on hand (which I often don’t), put a Tbs of lemon juice or white vinegar into your cup and fill it with whole milk (you can use 2% but whole milk works best). Let this sit for a few minutes, it will thicken and work the same as buttermilk.

Now the secret to making fluffy Amish biscuits is to not mix more than you have to. Just gently stir a bit. Then I get in there with my hands, it is messy, but you want to gently mix and squeeze together only until everything is moistened and sticks together.

Put a thin layer of flour in a circle on your countertop and place dough on top, gently pressing it out. Sprinkle flour on top as needed. You can roll it out with a rolling pin if you desire. But I don’t want to mess with this dough more than necessary. So I just press it into a nice circle with my hands leaving it about one to one and a fourth inches thick. It doesn’t have to look perfect.

Cutting out your old-fashioned buttermilk Biscuits, How to make biscuits tall

Now you are ready to cut out your circles. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter, you can just use a cup or any round object about the size you want. You may have to dip it in flour to keep the dough from sticking.

After you’ve cut out all the biscuits that you could fit, shake off the extra flour and gently squeeze the remaining pieces back together into another circle. And just keep cutting biscuits until the dough is gone.

Place biscuits onto a greased cookie sheet or cake pan. If you want taller biscuits place them touching one another so that they will rise instead of spreading out.

Bake at 450 degrees on the top oven rack for 11-13 minutes. I like mine nice and golden on top.

I always make a double batch of these old-fashioned buttermilk biscuits for my family of six because everyone loves them so much!

• Don’t give up if they don’t turn out perfect the first time. Getting a perfect pastry can take some practice. But it is well worth the effort when you succeed!
• Amish buttermilk biscuits recipe

Click here for an Amish White Bread Recipe

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