Southern Yogurt Biscuits

Well, you know I loves me some biscuits! I grew up in the South and being a good Southern family we ate biscuits a lot! Momma tried but Grandmaw made biscuits everyday. They always seems mysterious and elusive- Imagine my surprise when I found out how easy biscuits are to make!  Friends, I’m here to tell you I will never eat a crappy biscuit again. Heidi Swanson’s book, “Super Natural Everyday” convinced me that it can be done easily. Her technique is different than mine, she recommends using a food processor. I tried that. I don’t like using the food processor to make biscuits, it just seems wrong. So I do it by hand. She also uses a combination of flours, whole wheat and spelt. I use nice light southern flour. Her biscuits “seem” healthier than mine- but truth is- biscuits are supposed to be white. I’ve divulged the changes and now I give you my interpretation of Heidi Swanson’s yogurt biscuits.

Southern Yogurt Biscuits

10 1/2 ounces of light southern all-purpose flour (I prefer Martha White’s but it’s not available in Texas so I use whatever’s there)
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of butter
11 ounces of Greek yogurt

Preheat the oven to 450°F put the pan that you intend on baking biscuits on into the oven while preheating.

Put the stick of butter into the freezer while still in its wrapper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Remove the butter from the freezer carefully cut it in half and then in half again and keep cutting it until you get little cubes of butter. Put the butter cubes in the flour.

Using your hands separate the cubes from one another and coat them with flour. Working quickly pick up each cube and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger, snap your fingers as if you are making a sound to keep rhythm to music and drop the butter into the flour. Pick up another cube and keep repeating this squeezing of the butter making it flat until you’ve done most of the pieces. Try to handle the butter as little as possible, the more you handle it the more it will start to melt and you do not want the butter to melt until it’s in the oven. This is what makes the layers.

After you squeeze all the butter pieces add the yogurt into the flour and butter mixture. Using a fork toss the yogurt into the flour until it’s mixed pretty well. Lightly flour the countertop. Put the biscuit mix onto the floured countertop.
Press down on the dough ball until it makes a rectangle about 14″ x 7″ may be less. Don’t over handle the dough. Once the dough is all together and not quite so shaggy and it’s pressed flat – using a sharp knife, cut the rectangle into 3 pieces and stack them one on top of another. Now press this stack down into another flat rectangle. Try not to handle too much, it’s not perfect. Biscuits are “rustic”. I like to use my bench scraper to straighten and clean up the sides of the flattened dough as I work.
After you’ve got your 2nd flattened rectangle with your dough cut the dough in thirds and stack the thirds once again on top of another. Once again for the 3rd time press the dough into a rectangle try to use just your fingers- try not to use your entire hand please handle the dough as little as possible working quickly.

Once you have your 3rd rectangle you are ready to cut the biscuits. The best way to keep your biscuits rising properly is to try not to squeeze or smash the sides of the biscuits.
I like to cut the biscuits with a sharp knife instead of with a biscuit cutter because it uses all of the dough in the 1st round of cutting and I don’t have to reshape the dough again.
Cut the dough into equal pieces I try to get 12 or 15, sometimes I cut them really small

Place the biscuits on the hot pan and place in the oven. Bake biscuits for 12 to 18 min. depending on what size you cut them. Definitely begin to check them after 12 min.

Enjoy them hot!