Drop Biscuits Recipe So Easy
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This Drop Biscuits recipe that is always considered a treat at my house, met with the same zeal as a dessert even though it is just a bread.
Similar to Hoe Cake
A variation on my Mama’s hoe cake, she often mixed up the same batter and made drop biscuits instead. When I first served hoe cake to my in laws, hot from the oven with generous helpings of homemade apple butter, they declared it a hit. They loved the crispy outer layer and soft as clouds biscuit inside. But the next day when I made them drop biscuits with buttermilk and they assured me that the drop biscuits with apple butter were their new favorite.
Recipe Ingredients:
- Self rising flour
- Vegetable shortening (I like to use Coconut oil these days but use what you want)
- Buttermilk (you can use regular milk if you like)
- Some vegetable oil for the pan
Isn’t it amazing how all of the best Southern recipes have the fewest and most simple of ingredients?
Now take your ugliest baking sheet, one with a bit of a lip around the edges, and pour some vegetable oil on it.
You just need enough to coat the bottom.
Use Your Ugliest Baking Pan 🙂
You know that really ugly baking sheet you have that you make sure you don’t use when company comes? That is the one we want for this. Mine is so old and ugly I covered it in foil so you wouldn’t see! Bless it’s little heart, its a workhorse of a pan though! I normally do not cover my pan in foil so don’t feel that you have to.
Place that baking pan in your oven while it preheats to get the oil good and hot.
Measure your flour into a bowl.
Add your shortening.
Cut your shortening into the flour by repeatedly pressing down with a fork and stirring it up a bit as you do so.
Long Tined Fork Does Just Fine
I’ve mentioned before that you can buy a fancy pastry cutter for this but I find a long tined fork works just as well and I don’t have one more thing to keep up with. Simple is better here at Bountiful.
It’ll look like this when you are done.
Now pour in your buttermilk.
I used the very last bit of milk I had for these drop biscuits! Been so busy lately I haven’t had time to get groceries.
Stir it up until you have a batter that is just a little softer than regular biscuit batter.
It will be lumpy but that is perfectly fine so don’t go frettin’ over it.
Drop globs by large spoonful onto heated baking sheet.
The oil should be hot enough to sizzle a little bit when you add the batter.
How Do I Get The Tops Crunchy?
Tilt your pan a bit until some of the heated oil pools in the corner and spoon a bit of that oil over each biscuit.
This will get us nice and crunchy tops!
Here are our drop biscuits all ready to go.
These are pretty good sized ones and this recipe ended up making about eight of them.
If you make them a little smaller you could get a dozen.
Bake at 425 until golden brown, 10-15 minutes.
Ingredients
- 2 cups self rising flour
- 1 cup buttermilk any milk will do
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening I used coconut oil but use what you like
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425. Pour a thin layer of oil to cover the bottom of a large baking pan and place in oven to heat.
- Cut shortening into flour well. Pour buttermilk in and stir until wet – add a little more milk if needed.
- Drop by large spoonfuls onto well heated pan and spoon a bit of hot oil over each one.
- Bake for ten to fifteen minutes or until browned.
Nutrition
You may also enjoy these biscuit recipes:
Sausage Biscuit with Cheese Southern Style
Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe Light and Buttery
Garlic Cream Biscuits with Bacon Gravy
Happiness is like potato salad,
when shared with others – it becomes a picnic!
Submitted by Southern Plate reader, Kathi.
Christy,
I too had to wait until I stopped crying to write this, my mom died 11 years ago and she too was the family biscuit maker, I think all shouthern family’s have one, my Aunt Gail always had to Fry up the county ham and I had the mac and cheese when I go older. Man I really do miss those days. My grandmother is gone too. Like others on this site my mom had a bowl of flour, never washed it, dug a hole in the middle a hand of shortin, her hand and a cup of milk. And you know the rest. She never rolled them at all, they were pinched and that is the one thing I do wish I would have learned before she passed, mine are good but not like hers and much more compicated.
Teresa
That is exactly how my grandmother made her biscuits! They were delicious.
My Dad is from Lincoln, Alabama and he grew up there on a farm. His family always called these drop biscuits “cat heads”. Has anyone else heard them called that?
Oh, my yes. From my Daddy. Haven’t though for years.
Hey Cheryl, my grandma use to make what she called “cat head buscuits” in her cast iron skillet. I always assumed it was because they were as big as a cat’s head. They were really big & delicious.
you assumed correctly
Oh yes!!!!!! I always thought my dad just made up this word for moms biscuts.
Hi There !!
As a single dad, i have always been searching for good food for the family.. Cooking never was my calling, but.. I must say, what i have done, is now so much easier because of you… My last one soon leaves for college, so I have been introducing her to my “stash” of recipe’s. and where I got them.. from the back of boxes to Emeril and to then to you, Christy. WOW.. you have really made feeding a family simple, good tasting and hardy.. for this i thank you.
Ok.. on to the drop biscuits, you make them the way my granny and mom used to make them.. company gets real “nosey” when they see me pour oil on a pan.. such great biscuits they are.. and the HOE CAKE? My granny used to make it and serve it with homemade maple syrup. we went nuts for this.
Later i have learned to improvise and want to share one with you.. make your drop biscuits, place them on the hot pan.. then wet your thumb, and press into the center of each, making a dimple, fill this with, jalapeno cheese, or blackberry jam, or marmalade. Just a drop is all it takes. Then wet your fingers and pull the top of the biscuit back over the filling.. bake as normal… then stand back.. Hope your folks enjoy as much as we have.. God Bless.. Jim
Hmmm. Never thought of that. Gonna have to try it next time. Yum!
Wow Jim – I’m doing that tonight.
Thank you so much!
These are very similar to my mama’s biscuits. She used the well in the middle of the flour technique with oil and whatever kind of milk she had on hand. I still make this for my children. I don’t like the fancy cookin’ that is popular these days. I am just a southern girl that likes simple southern cookin’, too. I hope one day my children look at my meals with affection.
Thanks for sharing your life with us
Cheryl
My mama made something very similar and she always called it “Lazy Bread”. I guess that came from them not being rolled and cut, but just plopped on the pan. Delish!
My response perhaps won’t be like the others you have received. My mother was not much of a cook, nor was she affectionate and loving. She had a hard life, and did the best she could with what she had at the time, which was not a lot. She didn’t have the ability to “see” anything good in her circumstances. But I have to tell you, that finding your site is like finding a MOM, and I know I am much older than you, but it is such a blessing to read about your life, and get to “share” your recipes and insights. It is like having a loving Mom wrap her arms around me and say, “Come on in, and sit a spell. Have a glass of tea. Now, what are you fixin’ for dinner tonight?” I’m really glad you are here. Kathleen
amen
Hey! I made these but didn’t have shortening and my husband said just use stick butter. So I did and they turned out great. Just wondering what the difference would be in using shortening? I haven’t tried it yet but wondering if you ever used stick butter in these?