Basic Biscuits

Feeling adventurous, I tried making biscuits. The first I ever had was from Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits when I was in USA. They were so good (waaaaaaaaay better than what we have here in Singapore) that we went to Albertsons and bought a tube of Pillsbury's biscuits to bake in our apartment. Thereafter I had cheddar bay biscuits at Red Lobster too...those were godly! So in my honorary Biscuit Hall of Fame, the ranking goes like this: 1. Red Lobster, 2. Popeye, 3. Pillsbury.

So mine are actually really-pretty good as well! Crispy on the edges, soft and flaky on the inside. May I also say...It's so FLUFFYYY I'M GONNA DIEEEEEE!!! Damn, you should see the multiple layers of flakes, oh wait a minute, there're pictures Pretty impressed with the recipe. I'll rank them uhh...better than Pillsbury as it's just a basic biscuit without any flavoring or spices. But texture wise, they're comparable to the tops. They go well with butter and jam. I prefer them to be served warm, so I'll heat them up before eating if I'm not feeling too lazy.

Even though Dorie suggests it's okay to use our hands to handle the dough, I try not to use them over here where it's practically summer all year round. It's a race against time to send these babies into the oven before the cold butter melts, so I'll rather use my equipment. This recipe going to be in my bake-again list.
Basic Biscuits (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours)
Book states it makes 12 biscuits. 16 for me.

Ingredients:
280g all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
85g unsalted butter, cold and cut into 12 pcs
180ml milk, cold

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 220°C and prepare a baking tray with parchment paper
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt
3. Add in cold butter into the flour mixture
4. Work with your finger tips or a pastry blender (I use this) to rub the butter into flour until the mixture is pebbly
5. Pour in milk and use a fork to gently toss over and turn the ingredients until you have a nice soft dough
6. Reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick gentle knead, abt 3-4 turns to bring everything together
7. Light dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough
8. Use your hands to pat or roll the dough with a pin (I used a pin) till abt 1/2 inch high (Don't worry if dough is not completely even, a light quick touch is more important than accuracy)
9. Use a 2 inches biscuit cutter to cut out as much biscuits as possible and transfer them to the baking tray*
10. Gather together scraps and repeat step 8 & 9 until the dough is used up
11. Bake for abt 14 ~ 18 mins or until they are puffed up and golden brown, and serve warm

* At this stage, the dough can frozen on the baking sheet for up to 2 months. For baking without defrosting, just add a few more mins to the baking time.