Flaky and Fluffy Biscuits

INGREDIENTS

• 270 g All-purpose flour or 2 cups loosely packed
• 3 g Salt or 1/2 teaspoon
• 85 g Unsalted butter or 6 tbsp
• 12.5 g Sugar or 1 tbsp
• 8 g Baking powder or 2 tsp
• 180 ml Milk or 3/4 cup

DIRECTIONS

Prepare the Biscuits dough

1. Into a bowl, add in the flour, sugar,salt and baking powder.
2. Stir and combine everything together using a whisk, until all our ingredients get evenly distributed in the flour.
3. Now add the butter into the flour.
4. I took the butter straight from the fridge and used it.
5. Toss the butter in flour.
6. And now we need to get small pea sized butter pieces homogeneously distributed in the flour.
7. I am using a pastry cutter to do this; which makes the process so much easier.
8. We can also use forks to do this. 
9. Stop when you can see, the butter is evenly distributed in the flour. 
10. Add cold milk, little by little into the flour mixture and, using a fork, gently toss and stir together until large lumps form and all of the flour has been moistened.

Build the flaky layers

1. Transfer the dough on to a lightly floured work surface.
2. Using hands, squish the dough from sides and form a dough ball.
3. Again squish and pat from top to form a small rough square.
4. We need to be as gentle as we can while handling the dough.
5. I am not using a rolling pin to do this step because when we do this with hands it gives a rough finish and lighter texture to our biscuits.
6. Now using a bench scraper, cut the dough into 4 equal parts.
7. Stack them one over the other.
8. Squish and pat again to form a rough square.
9. Again cut into 4 parts and stack them one over the other and then form a flat sheet of approximately 1 inch thick.

Cut the biscuits

1. Use Biscuit cutter or a wide mouth glass jar to cut the biscuits.
2. I used a small 2 1/4 inch round cookie cutter.In this way, we can make 8 biscuits.
3. We can stack the remaining pastry dough ,squish and pat again to form dough sheet.
4. Place the cut biscuits on to a cast iron skillet.
5. It’s not necessary to grease the cast iron pan with butter.
6. We can also use a regular baking tray.It is better to use smaller tray as we can arrange them closer.When we arrange them closer, they can rise straight and tall while baking.

Bake the biscuits

1. Place the cast iron skillet on to 450 degrees F or 230 C Preheated oven and bake for around 14 minutes or until they turn golden brown on top.
2. If you are using a regular baking tray, we need slightly lesser baking temperature.
3. So place the baking tray on to 425 degrees F or 220 C Preheated oven and bake for around 16 minutes or until they turn golden brown on top.
4. When the biscuits are completely baked, take them out from the oven.
5. Apply the baked biscuits with some butter on top, so that they turn even more softer.

TIP:  If you have buttermilk on hand you can always substitute the milk for buttermilk for that added flavor and texture.