Sometimes you wake up on Sunday morning and everything is just right with the world.

Maybe you wake up super early while the rest of the house is still sleeping and you get some time to yourself to read, or write, or go for a run.

When I wake up early on a Sunday and I have a quiet house to myself I like to make biscuits. There’s just something about working with the dough while the morning light is slowly cutting in through the kitchen windows…that’s my form of morning meditation. I have to admit that the biscuits and the quiet house don’t happen often but when they do I know it’s going to be a pretty darn good Sunday.

Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

• all purpose unbleached flour
• baking powder
• kosher salt
• sugar (optional)
• COLD butter (cut into cubes)
• buttermilk (regular milk okay to use)

1. In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together
2. Put the butter cubes into the flour mixture and start cutting in the butter until the mixture is course and the butter pieces are about the size of peas {just buy a pastry & dough cutter/blender already – add one to your next Amazon Prime order – it seriously makes all the difference}
3. Stir in the buttermilk with a wooden spoon. Once it’s incorporated work it in with your hands. If there’s flour left that won’t work into the dough add in more buttermilk a tiny amount at a time (no more than an additional 1/4 cup)
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and pat into a disk that’s about an inch and a half or so thick. …You could stop here and cut out the biscuits, but you want the flaky layers, right?; Make the flaky biscuit layers: When you’ve patted your dough into a disk, fold it in half and flatten back out. Do this three to four more times
5. After your last fold, pat back into a one and a half inch disk and cut out with a round biscuit cutter. Cut them as tight together as possible. This dough isn’t like cookies where you can reroll and keep on cutting. For pretty, flaky biscuits fit as many as you can in that first cutting {I combine the scraps for a “bakers test biscuit” that I bake along side on a piece of tin foil, you know, so I can make sure they are tasty}
6. Place biscuits together in a well buttered pie tin {using butter instead of parchment will give them a slightly crunchy bottom from the butter} and brush the tops with a little buttermilk
7. Bake for about 12 – 14 minutes. You’ll want to take them out when the tops *just* begin to turn golden

Biscuit tips: Make sure to use baking POWDER! If your biscuits taste terrible it’s because you grabbed the baking soda by mistake – it’s so easy to do. Always double check that you are indeed using your baking powder!

Keep your butter as cold as possible. I like to take it out of the fridge right when it’s time to add to the flour.

Seriously, get yourself a dough cutter. It will open up a world of delicious scones and biscuits you always avoided making before. That trick with the two forks or knives your mom taught you? Nope. Get a dough cutter.