Cook and Scale
Buttermilk Biscuits with Sausage Gravy
4 servings · 55 min total
Tall, flaky buttermilk biscuits split open under a peppery pork sausage cream gravy. The Southern breakfast that keeps you full until dinner.
Ingredients
- 400 g wheat flour, plus 3 tbsp for the gravy
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp white sugar
- 1½ tsp salt
- 150 g butter, frozen and coarsely grated
- 3 dl buttermilk, well chilled
- 450 g sausage, casings removed
- 6 dl milk
- 1½ tsp black pepper, coarsely cracked
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Contains: Gluten, Milk
Allergen info is best-effort — please verify yourself.
Method
- 1.
Cut in the frozen butter — Heat the oven to 220°C. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and 1 tsp of the salt in a wide bowl, then toss the frozen grated butter through with your fingertips until every shred is coated and still visible.
- 2.
Fold the dough for layers — Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir with a fork only until a shaggy dough gathers. Turn it onto a floured surface, pat it to a 2 cm slab, fold it in thirds like a letter, and repeat the pat and fold twice more. Those folds become the layers.
- 3.
Stamp out the biscuits — Pat the dough out to 2.5 cm thick and stamp out 8 rounds with a straight-sided cutter, pressing straight down and never twisting, or the edges seal and the biscuits will not rise. Set them on a tray with their sides just touching.
- 4.
Bake until tall and flaky — Bake for 14-16 minutes, until they have doubled in height and the tops are deep golden with flaky ridges around the sides.
- 5.
Brown the sausage — While they bake, brown the sausage meat in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, breaking it into coarse crumbles with a wooden spoon and letting it stick and catch a little for flavour.
- 6.
Thicken the gravy — Sprinkle the 3 tbsp flour over the meat and its fat and cook for 2 minutes, then pour in the milk in a slow stream while whisking. Simmer for 6-7 minutes until the gravy thickly coats a spoon.
- 7.
Pepper hard and serve — Season the gravy hard with the cracked black pepper, the cayenne and the remaining salt — it should taste peppery enough to sting slightly. Split the hot biscuits open and ladle the gravy generously over both halves.