The best biscuit recipe ever – from the Joy of Cooking

Pre heat oven to 450 deg. (Canadian temp.)

 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 3 tsp double acting baking powder - sift together into a large bowl. 

Add 4 to 6 tbls chilled butter or shortening or a combination of both (we use a mix of both).  Cut the shortening into dry ingredients using a shortening cutter if you have (should get if you don't it makes a big diff.) use a fork if you don't.

Make a well in the center, and add 3/4 cup milk.

 Stir until the dough is fairly free from the sides of the bowl.  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board.  Knead gently and quickly, making about 8 to 10 folds.  Roll with a lightly floured rolling pin until the dough has the desired thickness. Cut with a biscuit cutter (we used cups until we bought a biscuit cutter).  Place on an ungreased baking sheet.  Brush with milk or melted butter.  Bake until lightly browned - 12 to 15 min. 

If you want to use as a meat pie dough - use 2 cup flour instead of 1 3/4 cups.  Roll out and place in pie shell – you can also use to put a lid or pie top on the meat pie.  We make it in our glass casserole dish and it works great.

The best part of this recipe is that you can add extras to make the biscuits even better.  WE like adding parsley (chopped) and grated cheese.  So about 2 tbls of parsley or chives, and about 1/3 cup cheese.  Though we tend to put extra in.  It is also great with chopped cooked ham, onions and cheese.  We also do fruit ones – fresh its 1 cup fruit chopped, dried it is ½ cup if you want to add nuts its about 1/4 cup.  However we just add what we like, and to taste now.  We are going to try the bacon crumbled in one day, it sounds good and we can make a great gravy from the drippings. 

If you want the biscuits to be a bit sweeter add 1 tbls sugar and another ½ tsp salt.  We usually do this when we add fruit to the mix, or have a spicy or sweet meat filling like BBQ pulled pork.

I hope you try and enjoy.