Grandma’s Favorite Angel Biscuits Recipe

I have been on a quest to find the homemade biscuit recipe of my Grandmother and the yeast rolls my Mom made.  At holidays, grandma would always make up cookie sheets full of biscuits.  There would be one finished on top of the stove next to the coffee pot, another baking in the stove, and another waiting to go in when the 2^nd pan came out.  She had to make a lot because everyone wanted one when they went through our family’s makeshift buffet line. 

When grandma passed, my mom got some of her recipes books. I started by going through the Church cookbooks and found a recipe with the amounts changed to make 5 times the biscuits. I asked Mom if that was Grandma’s recipe. She said it was and we could fix it together. I got all the ingredients and took them to Mom’s. We made up the recipe with Mom doing her best to fill in the blanks left in the instructions and checking that the dough looked correct after each step. After the baking was done, I and two of my brothers each ate a biscuit just to be sure it was the right recipe. (We look for any excuse to eat a buttered biscuit in the south.) Everyone agreed it was indeed Grandma’s biscuits. So the original recipe for 4 dozen biscuits is below, along with Mom’s edits of the instructions.

Angel Biscuits Recipe

Ingredients: 
5 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 and ½ package dry yeast
2 cups buttermilk
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup shortening
4 Tablespoons warm water

Instructions:

1.    Sift together dry ingredients (excluding yeast).
2.    Cut in shortening until it looks like coarse meal.
3.    Dissolve yeast in the warm water, Add it to dry ingredients and shortening mixture.
4.    Gently pour in buttermilk, working it into a nice dough.
5.    Roll dough out on floured board until about ¼ inch thick.
6.    Using biscuit cutter, cut into biscuit size/shape, then dip each in melted butter.
7.    Place on cookie sheets (we used parchment paper to prevent sticking/burning).
8.    Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes per pan.

Makes 4 dozen biscuits if using 2 ½ inch round biscuit/cookiecutter.

Notes:

Biscuit dough can be made in advance of baking date and refrigerated or frozen.  To freeze or refrigerate, stack biscuits together after the butter step #6 and place in freezer bags.  Or for baking latter in the day, refrigerate dough by placing biscuits on pans per step #7 and covering with foil. Cook pre-prep biscuits without thawing or rising.