There's an art to making good biscuits. It's not as simple as buying a box of bisquick and following the recipe on the back. I've been searching for YEARS for the recipe that creates those mile high, flaky biscuits you seen in pinterest pictures, or at the least, match canned pillsbury biscuits. It turns out that it's not just the recipe I had to find, but also the technique! This recipe was adapted straight up from my Betty Crocker cookbook (with the minor substitution on self rising flour instead of all purpose), but my technique was adapted from numerous blogs out there on how to make those fluffy, flaky biscuits. The recipe is at the end, but let me first give you the picture book, step by step technique I used that succeeded and made me and my whole family happy, happy, happy....

First, you need to mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk together for a fluffy, well blended flour mixture.

For this next step, you need REAL butter and you need it to be COLD. Like, maybe even freeze it for a little while cold. Get out your cheese grater and FINELY shred that buttery goodness into the flour mixture. Blend it in with a whisk a little at a time. 

This is what is should look like after your flour and butter are whisked together. A little crumbly looking, but still powdery. Now, we want to keep that butter in there cold. I stuck that bowl in the freezer for a few minutes, rinsed dishes, and prepared for the next steps.

Make a well in the flour mix and pour in cold milk. Stir lightly until just mixed, but do not over mix! I succeed at doing this by telling myself to be lazy about it. 

Spoon the dough out onto a floured surface...

Sprinkle some flour on top and roughly flatten the dough. 

Here's the important part. The secret to flaky, layered biscuits. Fold the biscuit dough in half and lightly press down. You want it to bind together, but not mush. 

Turn dough and fold again. You want to make sure all the sides get folded. Fold and press dough a total of 10 times. No more, no less. 

Now get your rolling pin out and flatten that dough out to about an inch thickness. 

Get your biscuit cutter out and note these instructions as they are the second most important to mile high, flaky biscuits. Punch your cutter into the dough, then out. DO NOT twist! Twisting the cutter in the dough seals the edges and prevents the biscuit edges from rising. You can shake the cutter a little when punching it in to help separate the biscuit from the rest of the dough, just no twisting. Pull the cutter out and gently take the biscuit and place it onto a cookie sheet. 

Another important note: Get as many biscuits out of the dough as you possibly can without remolding the dough together. I only re-kneaded the dough together once to get the last few biscuits out I could. The more kneading you do at this point, the less flaky and good the biscuits would be. Just trust me. 

The hard part is over! Now you need to decide if you want to freeze these biscuits for later use, or bake them immediately. If baking, keep in the fridge until the oven is preheated, then bake. If freezing, stick the pan into the freezer for an hour for the biscuits to harden a little (not too long or they will dry out!). Take the biscuits out of the freezer, bag, and refreeze until you are ready to bake. 

I hope you enjoy! I like to make sausage biscuits in the mornings with these delights. Sometimes I'll eat one sausage biscuit, and one biscuit with jelly. But if I do that, I have to eat a smoothie for lunch to make myself feel better about my excess breakfast choices (worth it). 

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, whisk the flour and sugar together. 
2. With a cheese grater, finely grate the butter into the flour mixture, whisking together after every half cup of butter is grated. Place bowl in the freezer when done grating and mixing. (The flour should be crumbly.)
3. If baking immediately, pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees and measure out 1 1/2 cups of milk. 
4. Take flour mix out of the freezer and whisk a well into the center. Pour the milk slowly into the well, and mix until JUST combined. 
5. Spoon dough out onto a floured surface, sprinkle flour on top of dough, and pat down. 
6. Fold dough in half and turn. Fold again, turn. Do this 10 times, then roll out into an inch thickness with a rolling pin. 
7. Cut biscuits out and place them onto a non-stick cookie sheet. (Remember not to twist the cutter into the dough!)
8. You can bake biscuits immediately for 10 - 12 minutes, or move onto the next step if freezing. 
9. Freeze biscuits on cookie sheet for an hour. Take out of freezer, bag, and refreeze. 
10. When you want to eat the biscuits, take out of freezer and put them onto a cookie sheet to sit while the oven warms up to 450 degrees. Bake for 10-12 minutes. 

The Three Main Secrets for PERFECT Biscuits:
1. Use frozen, grated butter to mix thoroughly into the dough. 
2. Fold the dough into itself TEN times. No more. No less.
3. Do NOT twist the biscuit cutter when cutting out the biscuits. 

Hey Everyone! I hope your weekend went well! Yesterday I decided to make 3 different breakfast foods ahead of time so they could be "instant" when I wake up in the mornings. Remember when I told you I hate cereal? Well, avoiding cereal means I have to cook in the mornings. But, I don't have to cook every morning! Just like those people you hear about on Pinterest who make their month's worth of dinners in one day and freeze for quick baking on week nights...I do that with breakfasts. Oh! And last minute I decided to video it live for everyone to see on Meerkat. I had 307 people watching from all over the place! Someone asked me if I could mail them some cinnamon rolls to Austria! Crazy...

Anyway, I began the video at 2pm and stopped it when everything was done at 4:15pm. I made cinnamon rolls, freezer biscuits, and granola bars from scratch. Now the bad news is because I was using my phone to video everything I was unable to take pictures for you all to see the making process, but we did get a few behind the scenes pictures. 


I was super nervous and felt awkward when I first began recording. Meerkat also lets you see viewers and their comments, which made things a little better. I had moments where I was just silent and did my baking business, and other times where I would ramble on about biscuits and cinnamon rolls, and eventually, it got to the point where I actually felt like I was having a conversation with someone in the room, and not talking to myself. I had a lot of fun overall, and I will be doing it again! 

I can't wait to do another one. I'll schedule the next one in advance so you have enough time to be ready to check it out. I may also do a few more spur of the moment livestreams on Meerkat as I go about my day to day routines. 

So, back to the recipes! 

In a little over 2 hours, I made cinnamon rolls, biscuits, and granola bars. Here are the recipes...

Instructions:

1. First, place the yeast into the bread machine and add warm milk. Then add all other ingredients for the dough. Close the lid, press the "dough" cycle, and start. The machine will mix and knead the dough, and give it a warm environment to rise in. It will tell you when the dough is done and has risen (about 1 1/2 hours).
2. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together and try to get out all the clumps. Set aside. 
3. When dough is ready, fold it out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat some flour on top and use a rolling pin to roll it into a 16 x 21 inch rectangle (make sure it is 1/2 to an inch thick). Gently spread the softened butter over the dough, then evenly add the brown sugar mixture on top of that. (note: make sure you leave your butter out for at least an hour beforehand so it is soft enough to gently spread). Roll the dough up (vertically or horizontally... depending on how many and how big you want your rolls to be) and slice into rolls. Place rolls onto a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise again for 30 minutes. 
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake the rolls for 15 minutes or until tops are browned. 
5. To make the icing, beat together the powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, and butter. You can either spread on rolls when they come out of the oven, or put it into a container and freeze. I freeze mine and the rolls separately in a ziplock bag, that way I don't have to eat them all up immediately.  

Instructions:

1. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, or, cut the butter up into small pea-sized pieces and mix into the flour with a knife. Add in the cold milk and mix everything together until just moistened (do not overmix).
2. Fold out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat some flour on the top and press the dough out until it is about an inch thick. Take your desired biscuit cutter, and cut out your biscuits, placing them onto a cookie sheet afterward. (For flaky biscuits and rise better, do not twist the biscuit cutter in. Cut stright in, and straight out.
3. Freeze the biscuits flat on your cookie sheet for about an hour. Take them out and place them into a ziplock bag and put back in the freezer for future use. 
4. To bake... thaw your biscuits in the fridge overnight, or on the counter for about 30 minutes. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. (Do not open the oven during this time! They rise better if you leave them be until they are done.)

1. In a small sauce pan over medium heat, melt and mix together the butter, honey, and brown sugar. Let it boil for 2 minutes. Turn the heat off and add vanilla. 
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the cooking oats and rice cereal. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and gently mix together. Fold out onto a cookie sheet, and press together tightly into a 3/4 inch thickness.  (I only use half of the cookie sheet.)
3. Gently press your toppings on top, and set aside to cool for at least 2 hours.
4. When completely cooled, cut into bars.