A soft and tender, melt in your mouth biscuit, made with self-rising flour, lard and buttermilk.
Old-Fashioned Lard Biscuits
Back in the day, whole neighborhoods and families gathered in the fall for the boucherie hog slaughter and the big feast and celebration that went with it. Although there are a few old-timers left, that art has all but dried up with rare exceptions in some of the most rural areas of the country.
You know. Those places where folks actually do still live off the land and raise their own meat, instead of buying it at a grocery market.
Back then, the preferred fat for everything, including biscuits, would have been the rendered pig fat. Lard. And, truth be known, lard was commonly used back then all across the country.
Just a quick reminder.... if you aren't interested in the chit chat, info, photos, tips, product recommendations and such on a blog, as always, you'll find the complete recipe text with measurements and instructions, as well as a printable document, a little bit further down the page. Just swipe or scroll down to the bottom of the post!
Until it wasn't, because, of course, the powers that be told everybody it was bad for us.
Turns out though, they weren't so right about that!
Today, it is said that lard is healthier than previously thought, containing less saturated fat than butter, more of the good for you healthy monounsaturated fat, such as that found in some nuts, avocado and olive oil, and it's a good source of essential nutrients, like vitamin D.
So there to you, those powers that be!
Here's what you'll need to make my Old-Fashioned Lard Biscuits:
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
- 1-1/3 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup lard
- 1 tablespoon softened unsalted butter
Note: As an Amazon.com Services LLC Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases linked in my posts and marked as #ad or #affiliate links.
Grocery store lard will do just fine but I recently found this brand of lard (#ad). Fabulous!
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Butter a skillet or cake pan.
Aerate flour in canister or bag with a whisk. Add the flour, baking soda and salt to a large bowl and whisk together. Yes. I'm using self-rising flour and adding a bit of baking soda and salt and it's not uncommon, especially when using buttermilk. The baking soda activates the acid in the buttermilk and creates a more fluffy biscuit with a higher rise.
Plus, unless you make biscuits on the regular, your self-rising flour has probably lost a little leavening power sitting around waiting and could use an assist!
Make a well in the center of the flour, pour buttermilk into the well and top with the lard.
Now. You can use a spoon but I find hands work best here. Wash and dry your hands!
Using your clean fingers, squish the flour into the buttermilk and lard until a soft, sticky dough begins to form and pulls away from sides of the bowl. Clean dough off of fingers and let it drop into the bowl. Get the rest off your hands with a paper towel and wash and dry your hands again!
Fill a measuring cup with about a half cup of the self-rising flour and sprinkle about 1/4 cup of it on a biscuit mat (#ad) or clean countertop to use as your bench flour. Turn out dough on top of the bench flour.
Sprinkle a little additional flour on top of the dough.
Turn over and begin flattening into a disc, drawing in additional flour as needed, folding the dough onto itself; turn and repeat folding and turning until dough is easy to handle and not overly sticky. A pastry bench scraper (#ad) is a great tool for this with sticky dough.
Gently flatten to a disk between 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick.
Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter or since I couldn't find mine, you can use a similar sized drinking glass to cut out biscuits, dipping cutter into flour as needed. Try to avoid twisting the cutter as this tends to seal the edges of the biscuit which can interfere with the rise. Push the dough together and fold again a few times, patting down to cut out the remaining biscuits.
Place cut out biscuits into the prepared skillet or cake pan with sides touching. You should get between 8 to 10 biscuits, depending on the size you cut them. I'm using my countertop oven and a pan fits better than a handled skillet.
Bake at 450 degrees F about 15 minutes, until tops are lightly browned and dough is cooked through. Brush tops with butter.
Split in half and slather with butter.
Or, finish it with a bit of your favorite Amish jam.
Serve them with your favorite stew or soup.
Or, make a breakfast sandwich.
Now. I know some of y'all are gonna have some not so nice things to say about this breakfast sandwich, but let me tell you something about that. If a can of Spam is what you have after the lean days of hurricane aftermath, it'll feel like a steak, just sayin'!
Anyway... so I had some Spam in my emergency supplies that was running up on its best by date and needed to be used so I sliced it up, fried it in a skillet, made an egg in that pretty red microwave egg cooker (#ad) and voila. A Spam and Egg breakfast sandwich - and, frankly, it was delicious!
That little red egg cooker is a great tool to cook an egg up quickly, especially when it's just you. Drop the egg in, beat it with a splash of milk, some salt and pepper and microwave about a minute 15 (depends on the wattage of your microwave). Quick and easy, and you can even add your favorite omelet fillings!
Here's a list of the products featured in my post linked to my Amazon account. As noted above, as an Amazon.com Services LLC Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases linked in my posts and marked as #ad or #affiliate links.
- Microwave egg cooker (#ad)
- Amish jams and jellies (#ad)
- Silicone baking mat (#ad)
- South Chicago Packing Lard Shortening(#ad)
- Gravity salt and pepper grinders (#ad)
- Bench scraper (#ad)
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