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Prep time
30 minutes
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Cook time
25 minutes
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makes
8 biscuits
Author Notes
It’s Sunday morning, and, like every day, your sourdough starter is demanding some attention. Sourdough bread? Of course, always an option. But how about something more straightforward, something that comes together in less than an hour but tastes like it took all morning? Enter our humble friend the drop biscuit: a ruffian compared to a proper laminated biscuit, but in its simplicity lies its charm. A rough mix of simple ingredients—which you likely already have in your fridge right now—results in a versatile biscuit that’s as good on its own as it is with a spot of butter and jelly. It can be a landing pad for a few scoops of summer ice cream or the base for strawberry shortcake.
I like to use buttermilk for the liquid in these biscuits because of the added tangy flavor, but you could substitute the 140 grams of buttermilk for 70 grams of whole milk plus 70 grams of heavy cream or all full-fat yogurt. This recipe makes 8 rather large biscuits; if you’d like smaller biscuits, use a smaller cookie scoop to make 12 smaller mounds of dough spaced evenly on the sheet pan. Be sure to adjust the baking time to suit: Smaller biscuits will bake faster, so I’d bake them for 18 to 20 minutes total. Grab your pourable mixing bowls, and let’s get baking!
—Maurizio Leo
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Ingredients
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113 grams
(½ cup, 1 stick) unsalted butter
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140 grams
buttermilk, plus more if needed
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72 grams
ripe sourdough starter (100% hydration)
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225 grams
all-purpose flour
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3/4 teaspoon
fine sea salt
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1 tablespoon
baking powder
Directions
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In the morning, when your sourdough starter is ripe (when you’d typically give it a refreshment), heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Slice the butter into ¼-inch pats and place them into the freezer for about 10 minutes while you ready the rest of the ingredients.
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In a small mixing bowl, combine the buttermilk and sourdough starter, stirring to break up the starter until combined.
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Add the flour, salt, and baking powder to a large mixing bowl, whisking to combine. Remove the butter from the freezer and place the pieces in the mixing bowl with the flour, tossing to coat. Using a pastry cutter or the back of a fork, cut the butter into the flour until only small pieces remain, about the size of small peas. Alternatively, use a food processor to pulse the flour and butter.
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Pour the buttermilk and starter mixture into the flour and butter mixture. Using a spatula, gently fold the liquid mixture into the flour. Avoid overmixing the dough: Mix just until all the ingredients come together into a cohesive mass. If the mixture seems too dry, conservatively add a little more buttermilk, a small splash at a time, to help everything come together. The dough should be slightly sticky but not dripping wet or loose.
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Using a blue scoop (#16, 2 ounces) or cookie dough scoop, scoop the dough and place 8 evenly spaced mounds of dough on the baking sheet. I like to leave the dough a little ragged, which creates crispy peaks when baking in the oven.
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Bake the biscuits for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and cover the biscuits with a clean kitchen towel to keep them moist as they cool. Once cool enough to handle but still warm, eat them as is or with butter and jelly.
Maurizio is the software engineer-turned-baker behind the award-winning sourdough website, The Perfect Loaf. Since baking his first loaf of bread, he's been obsessed with adjusting the balance between yeast and bacteria, tinkering with dough strength and hydration, and exploring everything sourdough. His New York Times Bestselling sourdough cookbook, The Perfect Loaf, is now available.
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