Oooooooooohhhhhh MY! These biscuits are not messin’ around. My friend Mary Reagan said she had a fantastic biscuit recipe so I had to give it a go, given every biscuit I’ve ever made turns out like a sad little hockey puck. She’s from Alabama, so I knew she would know a good biscuit. I’ve never met a southern recipe I didn’t love.

The fantastic thing is that these are hard to mess up…even though I did. HA! I made the mistake of rolling out the dough – so overworked it a bit – but I didn’t need to as I chose to do a “cat head” biscuit, which simply means rolling up the dough into large balls and baking in a cast-iron skillet. Despite these not fluffing up as much as they likely could – they were DELISH. They are definitely best served right out of the oven as opposed to reheating. So try out this recipe and wow your relatives on Christmas morning! This recipe comes from The Southener’s Cookbook by Garden & Gun.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbs cold, unsalted butter – but into small pieces, plus melted butter for brushing
2 tbs cold lard, cut into small pieces
3/4 to 1 cup cold whole buttermilk (3/4 cup on a rainy day, 1 cup on a clear, dry day)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar together in a large bowl. Then blend the butter and lard into the flour using a pastry blender, two knives, or two forks until the mixture resembles course meal with flakes of butter and lard dispersed throughout.

Next up, make a well in the center of this mixture, and pour in the buttermilk, mixing well until a dough forms. Only use as much as you need to turn the mixture into dough, not more.

Get out your cast iron skillet and start to form balls (floured hands help) into the size of a small cat head. Place in the skillet, and cook for 10-12 minutes until the biscuits have risen and the tops are slightly brown. Remove and brush with some melted butter and a pinch of salt (Mary Reagan’s amazing addition). Serve warm with butter and honey. Have mercy.