Homemade biscuits are so easy to make, and if you follow a few simple rules, they will always turn out fluffy and delicious. A great tasting biscuit has less to do with the ingredients and more to do with the technique. Follow the instructions below and you will see exactly what I mean.

More delicious biscuit recipes:

Maple Bacon Biscuits
Mom's Biscuits and Gravy
Sourdough Biscuits
Dutch Oven Biscuits
Sweet Potato Biscuits

Check out all of Linda's great Bread Recipes for your bread making.

2 cups all-purpose flour or 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1/2 cup cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chilled vegetable shortening or butter, cut into small chunks about the size of sugar cubes*
1 cup cold buttermilk**

* The vegetable shortening or butter must be very cold

** If you find yourself short of buttermilk for your recipe, you can make your own by adding 2 tablespoons of vinegar to 2 cups of whole milk.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Toss the butter chunks into the flour mixture. Refrigerate for a least 1 hour or overnight.

Remove the bowl from the refrigerator and, using clean hands, mash the butter chunks between your thumb and index finger into quarter-sized pieces. Don't handle the mixture too much as you want to keep the butter cold. Again refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes or longer. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

After refrigerating, mix the cold buttermilk into the flour/butter mixture, tossing briskly with your hands or a fork to evenly distribute the buttermilk so no dry bits of flour are visible. The dough will be sticky but should clear the sides of the bowl.

Scrape the biscuit mixture out onto a lightly-floured work surface and gather, with floured hands, into a ball (do not knead). Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/4-inch thick. Fold into thirds and rotate dough 90 degrees, dusting work surface with flour. Roll out to about 1/2-inch thick.

Using a 3-inch biscuit cutter or drinking glass, cut the dough, dipping the cutter or glass into the flour after each cut. Be sure to cut the biscuits close together, even touching, so you won't have many scraps. Re-rolling the scraps will make tougher biscuits. Place onto an ungreased baking sheet, close together for soft-sided biscuits or 1-inch apart for crisp-sided ones.

NOTE: If you need to hold the uncooked biscuits, the cut dough rounds can be refrigerated for up to 1 hour.

Bake approximately 15 minutes, without opening the oven door, until the biscuits have risen and the tops are golden brown. Remove from oven and serve warm.

Makes 6 to 8 (3-inch) biscuits.