I know my usual Sunday post is a healthy one, but I must confess that with the holidays I have not cooked anything healthy all week. But, in my unhealthy cooking, I did try something new. I keep seeing all of these overnight biscuits online and decided to try making them with my own biscuit recipe. And, I thought that with Christmas next week, this might be the perfect post. Anything you can do ahead on Christmas Eve to make Christmas morning easier is a great idea in my book.

The overnight refrigeration is supposed to let the dough rise a bit and make the biscuits fluffier. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that they were any fluffier than usual, but they were certainly at least as good as usual. Even when it is not a holiday, I am not a morning person, so this is definitely how I plan to make biscuits from now on! Less is definitely more in the morning, so I plan on doing some further experimentation – like cutting the out ahead of time too! I will definitely let you know if I find a way to make mornings even easier!

Overnight Biscuits

Yield: 10

Ingredients

2 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) plus 2 Tbsps. butter, cold and divided
1 cup whole buttermilk

Instructions

!The Night Before
Cut the 1/4 cup of butter into the flour using a pastry blender or a fork until the mixture resembles corn meal. Pour in the buttermilk and stir with a fork just until the dough comes together.
Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.
Refrigerate overnight.
!In the Morning
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a dry 10 inch cast iron skillet in the oven to heat while you make the biscuits. Lay the dough on a large floured cutting board. Fold and knead several times until dough becomes smooth and is no longer sticky. Do not over over knead or you biscuits will be tough and won’t rise well. You should only fold and knead 4 or 5 times. Cut dough with a biscuit cutter of desired size and shape – I used a glass a little over two inches in diameter for these. When you have the dough cut, remove the the skillet from the oven. Remember it will be very hot! Place the remaining two tablespoons of butter in the skillet and allow it to melt tilting the skillet so that butter covers the entire bottom. Place the biscuits in the skillet. Put the skillet back into the oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden. Alternately, you could bake them on a parchment lined baking sheet, but you will miss the crunchy, buttery crust.