by Kelli Bowen
As I get older, I want to know more about where things come from, how they’re made, etc. I am the generation where packets and mixes and tubes of pre-packaged items in flashy packages or earworm commercials plagued my childhood.
Just do it. Good to the last drop. Etc., Etc., Etc.!
I knew my grandmother had the skill to make things from scratch, but she even confided in me that she used “cheaters” for a lot of her recipes, like frozen bread dough instead of making bread from scratch.
When Hubby and I were first married, we’d get those demonic little cardboard tubes of biscuits that you’d have to pop open. I HATE them. It’s like some messed-up adult version of a Jack-in-the-box.
I’d also get the pouch of “just add milk” muffins, cookies, etc.
Do you know what you need to make biscuits? Two ingredients: self-rising flour and heavy whipping cream. Now, you have to separate the butter from the buttermilk by agitating it first: I use my kitchen aid mixer.
Anyhoo…there has to be a better way. I love cookbooks. I like combing through them on weekend mornings for ideas. I found a recipe for muffins, and guess what? They’re not that hard. I’ve found a lot of recipes are quite simple, we just don’t know. We had parents using microwaves and tearing open packages and just adding milk. That isn’t necessarily bad, but in the overall dumbing down of society, I don’t want to lose the knowledge of how to cook altogether.
Here’s what you do:
Take 2 cups of flour and put in a bowl. Make a bird’s nest (AKA a bowl in the middle of the flour), add 1/2 cup butter to the bird’s nest and a cup of buttermilk. Blend. I like to get my pioneer prairie housewife vibes on and just get my hand in there and get it blended.
Then turn the dough out on a floured surface, pat it a 1/2 flat and cut the biscuits. I have used a small plastic storage bowl, you can use a clean opened aluminum can, you don’t need to buy new things.
Then set the biscuits on a greased baking sheet or in a greased cast-iron pan and bake at 450-500 degrees for 12-16 minutes.
That is it. Warning: you may feel like you’re ready to take on the Oregon Trail, fight back against Nellie Olson, or just call to your ancestors, and they’re good.
So get out there, and make some biscuits from scratch, and never buy those anxiety-inducing exploding tubes of sadness again. I’m rooting for you.
Kelli, a North Dakota girl through and through, has made her home from the eastern prairies to the western badlands with her supportive Hubby, two daughters, and ever-growing menagerie accompanying her along the way.