Cook Southern Biscuits with Alton Brown | Good Eats | Food Network

Nobody can deny the deliciousness of a flaky, buttery biscuit.


Pop culture, comedy and plain good eating: Host Alton Brown explores the origins of ingredients, decodes culinary customs, and presents food and equipment trends. Punctuated by unusual interludes, simple preparations and unconventional discussions, he'll bring you food in its finest and funniest form.

Welcome to Food Network, where learning to cook is as simple as clicking play! Grab your apron and get ready to get cookin' with some of the best chefs around the world. We'll give you a behind-the-scenes look at our best shows, take you inside our favorite restaurant and be your resource in the kitchen to make sure every meal is a 10/10!

Southern Biscuits
RECIPE COURTESY OF ALTON BROWN
Level: Easy
Total: 40 min
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 20 min
Yield: 1 dozen

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.


Subscribe to our channel to fill up on the latest must-eat recipes, brilliant kitchen hacks and content from your favorite Food Network shows.


#GoodEats #AltonBrown #FoodNetwork #SouthernBiscuits

Cook Southern Biscuits with Alton Brown | Good Eats | Food Network

[cloudan]

Tuesday, December 04, 2001

Last week "the big one" finally caught up with my grandmother. Good Eats fans may remember Ma Mae from a show called "And the Dough Also Rises" wherein she and I staged a biscuit bakeoff which she won.

Ma Mae wasn't a great cook. Her batterie de cuisine was humble. The highlight of her culinary library was a paperback published by the electric company in 1947. Her oven cooked a hundred degrees hot. She didn't even own a decent knife. And yet, her food was the epitome of good eats. Her chicken and dumplings, greens and cornbread were without equals. Her cobblers were definitive. Her biscuits ... the stuff of legend. She learned to make these from her mother and grandmother. She didn't tinker with the dishes nor did she dissect them or ponder their inner workings. She just cooked. She thought my own Frankensteinian desire to understand food was a little on the silly side.

The first thing I did when I got to her house was greedily seize the small wooden recipe box that had sat on the counter my entire life. Upon inspection, this ancient codex proved disappointing. There were gobs of recipes written in her smooth hand, but they were all the stuff of gossip ... Mary Sues Marshmallow Salad ... Gertrude's Oatmeal divinity, etc. The real treasures were nowhere to be found and that made sense. She knew those recipes and had no reason to write them down. It had been my duty to learn them from her and I hadn't taken the time. In her last years I'd been too busy to visit much, too preoccupied with peeling away the mysteries of egg proteins and figuring out why toast burns. In short, I'd missed the whole stinkin' point. When I left her house after the funeral I took Ma Mae's favorite cooking tool, her grandmother's cast iron skillet. I understand this vessel, the particulars of its metallurgy, how heat moves through its crystalline matrix. But I'll never be able to coax the old magic from it and for that I am very sorry.

This is a cautionary tale kids, and I hope you'll take heed. In the end, cooking isn't about understanding it's about connecting. Food is the best way to keep those we must lose. So put down that glossy cookbook, put down that fancy gadget and get thee to grandmother's house. Or go cook with your dad, your aunt, your sister, your mom. Cook and learn and share while you can.

End of lecture.

posted by Alton Brown, 1:53 PM



[saiyantwan]

This was so wholesome. Alton has said that this was one of his favorite episodes since he get to cook with his grandmother before she passed away.

[luckdragongirl]

You know you're Southern when you hear "soft winter wheat flour" and know he's talking about White Lily Flour. Sorry for those not from the South, but that's the gold standard that most Southern cooks know about and is in most grocery stores.

[reneejohnson]

He truly honor his grandma what a lovely relationship 💞

[jamesturner]

I think that's the closest I've ever seen to how my grandmother in Waycross made the most heavenly biscuits ever tasted by nan. The biggest difference is that she didn't use buttermilk, often powdered milk or whole milk (it never really mattered they always tasted exactly the same) and she never cut them, they were always hand formed and gently pushed down with her knuckles. She too had her pan that is historic. Not one person in my family has ever been able to recreate that magic. And if you ever were graced enough to have one absolutely melt in your mouth it was more magical than disney ever dreamed of!

[susanoppat]

On a couple of my Gram’s recipes, I made her grab a “Handful” and throw it in a measuring cups because our hands were two very different sizes. Same for pinches, etc. The cousins all want to know how I managed to get actual recipes...

[karlynlevan]

I made these 12/15/23. I have made numerous recipes with so so results. This one was easy enough and didn't require a 5cup flour commitment like the other recipes. I substituted the shortening for margarine, the biscuits were buttery and delicious. It made a thicker biscuit no super light and airy. And all of the buttermilk wasn't necessary, I added it little by little like grandma did and still ended up adding a little to much

[douglasfrank]

An experienced biscuit maker like his mother doesn't need to measure. She can tell by sight and touch.

[Big-Monkey-Man]

I remember watching this over 20 years ago, I was around 9 or 10. I learned so much back then

[LetsCelebrateTV]

Love this classic episode - I remember when it first aired 🍷

[KillerBebe]

I was waiting for her to turn to you and say, “You talk to much, just watch me”

[hannahjoy]

This is my childhood. It's crazy how often I think about this episode.

[bridgettetucker]

The brief view of those biscuits looked divine! Thank you for displaying two methods of making southern style biscuits.

[mrob]

I found myself simply watching Mama calmly and silently make her biscuits…Learned more from Mama. :—)

[dionjohnson]

I'm willing to bet a million dollars that Grandma's biscuits turned out better. That's why he didn't show it at the end. Lol.

[katherinetutschek]

Can't wait to try this. What a beautiful relationship you both have.

[rebeccacable]

If asked how much, my nanny would say just enough. I asked what temp for the oven she said good and hot.
I miss her so much.

[aprilflower]

I just made them, they taste amazing. Very easy to make.

[davidjones]

Alton you listen to your Grandma now you hear, cool video Mr. Brown .

[delegate]

"Older than you are" lol grandma has jokes 🤣 I love her !