Grandpa's Home Cooking

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits For 1 or More

Aren't they pretty! Split and dressed with pure butter and fruit preserves while they are HOT, these biscuits were out of this world delicious. But the best news yet is that you can make these biscuits for just you ... for two ... or for whatever number of people you want to serve.  No fuss, no muss, and no waste ... and they taste like the biscuits grandma used to make when I was a boy.

Nowadays, you can go to the frozen food department of your supermarket and pick up a bag of ready made Southern Buttermilk biscuits ...just  like the ones in my picture. I buy a bag of 20 frozen biscuits and toss them into our freezer. When I want a couple of biscuits, I preheat our oven to 375 degrees. I take the number biscuits I need from the freezer, put them in a dark metal non-stick pan, and bake the biscuits according to directions on the back of the bag.  (You might find the biscuits take 2-3 more minutes to bake than indicated on the bag.)

You can choose the ready to bake biscuits or put your apron on at 6:00 a.m., grab the bag of White Lily Flour (still the best) from the pantry, and go to work. Meanwhile, about 9:00 a.m., I'll be eating hot biscuits. Here's all you have to do to fix them. 

Ingredients:

• Oven preheated to 375 degrees
• Your morning newspaper
• Hot coffee or tea
• A bag of frozen Southern Buttermilk biscuits*
• A dark metal teflon cake pan or cookie sheet
• Pure butter or margerine, soft and ready to spread**
• Preserves or honey

* I've tested 3 brands of biscuits. Mary Jo, Alexia, and Pillsbury Grand. All 3 were good, but I like the Pillsbury Grand the best. They rise, look, and taste as I expect.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Go to the freezer and pull out as many biscuits as folks will eat. Follow the directions on the back of the bag. Put the biscuits in the pan with the sides touching.  Put the pan in the preheated oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. I've added one more step to the directions. When the biscuits start to brown, about 2 minutes before they are done, I brush the top of the biscuits with butter and finish baking them. This step improves the browning of the biscuits. 

While the biscuits are baking, put the butter, preserves, plates, butter knives, and whatever else you want on the table. Use a hot pad to pull the pan of biscuits out of the oven. Use a spatula to move the biscuits to a serving plate and enjoy eating the hot biscuits!

**How many of you remember, back to the war years in the 1940's, when grandma mixed lard with an orange coloring pellet to make oleo margarine? The product came in a kit which contained the lard and a plastic packet with the coloring pellet. You put the fat in a bowl, opened the plastic button, dropped it in the bowl, and then used a big spoon to knead the coloring into the fat until you had smooth yellow margarine. I can picture Great Grandma See sitting on a chair mixing the margarine. 

Grandpa's Apple Butter

 
Set out your best hot buttered biscuits and pass grandpa's Indiana apple butter. This apple butter is delicious and so easy to make. You first need to make apple sauce and then use the apple sauce to make the apple butter. I recommend that you make apple sauce one day and bake the sauce into apple butter the next day.

To make apple sauce

Ingredients:

• 10 pounds of tart Granny Smith apples
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
• Large crock pot

Instructions for making apple sauce:

Peel, core and quarter the apples. Put the fruit in the crock pot and put the lid on the pot. Cook the apples on low. Cook the apples until the fruit begins to look soft. Use a wooden spoon to stir and mash the fruit into smaller chunks. Sprinkle the sugar and the cinnamon over the top of the fruit. Use the wooden spoon to stir the sugar and cinnamon into the sauce. Continue cooking the fruit. Stir the apples occasionally until the fruit becomes apple sauce. Use hot pads to remove the bowl from the metal crock pot casing. You can then decide to use the sauce or decide to make the apple butter the next day. If this is your choice, put the lid on the crock pot glass bowl and put it in your refrigerator.

To make the apple butter the next day

Remove the crock pot bowl from the refrigerator and gather the necessary ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups of apple sauce (all of the sauce made from 10 lbs of tart apples)
• 5 1/3 cups of hot water
• 5 Tablespoons cinnamon
• 2 2/3rds cups of sugar
• Large baking dish or cast iron dutch oven
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Glass storage jars (see storing instructions below)

Baking Instructions:

Put all ingredients into a large baking dish or cast iron dutch oven. Stir ingredients well. Put the baking dish or dutch oven and bake for 7 hours (yes, seven hours). Stir the sauce once each hour. (Don't fret if you've waited for an hour and a half or if you fail to stir it for 2 hours. Schedules get crazy, but it's good to stir throughout the baking process.) 

The apple butter is done when it is about a medium thickness, a deep burgundy color, and there is no water standing on top of the fruit. 

Storing Instructions:

You'll find canning jars with appropriate lid seals at the supermarket or cooking store. Look for Kerr or Ball jars. Now, don't get nervous. This is not a difficult canning operation. If you want to be uniform the first time out, or if you have in mind giving some of your prize apple butter to friends or family, you'll need 6-8, 8 oz canning jars and lids. 

Wash the storage jars (only the jars and not the seals) in your dishwasher (or put the jars in boiling water on your range if you do not have a dishwasher).

Spoon your apple butter into the storage jars and screw the lid seals tight. There is no need to refrigerate the jars until they are opened. You can store the jars in a cool dark cabinet. The kitchen cabinet works for me. Let the hot jars cool before you put them in a storage cabinet. You may hear a pop noise as the lid seals the contents of the jar. Once a jar is opened, you must then refrigerate the rest of the apple butter.