These are the Callie’s Buttermilk Biscuits that made Callie’s Charleston Biscuits famous. They are tender and rich and the recipe is a little bit different than the typical southern biscuit recipe. If you’re a regular at making biscuits or you’ve wanted to try but never have, you’ll love this recipe.
Callie’s Biscuits
Biscuits that are just right -tender and fluffy- can be difficult to make if you don’t make them often. There’s a lot of feel and touch involved and those are things that are hard to translate into a recipe. The recipe for Callie’s Buttermilk Biscuits in the wonderful Callie’s Biscuits and Southern Traditions: Heirloom Recipes from Our Family Kitchen
Cookbook contains very detailed directions that will greatly increase your chance for biscuit success. And if you don’t succeed on the first attempt, try again.
Homemade biscuits are well worth the learning curve. I’ve paraphrased and shortened up the instructions quite a bit in the recipe below. But if you enjoy southern cooking, Callie’s Biscuits and Southern Traditions is well worth the purchase. With beautiful pictures, a wide variety of southern recipes, detailed instructions, and multi-paragraph introductions to each recipe, this is a cookbook that belongs on the book shelf of any southern cook. Callie’s Charleston Biscuits was started in 2005 when Carrie Morey convinced her mother to put off early retirement from her catering business and use her biscuit recipe as the backbone for a new business. It was well-received and the biscuits were soon after featured on Oprah and the Today Show. They can now be purchased at high end retail stores across the country. And with the publication of the cookbook last year, they can be enjoyed fresh and piping hot from your oven.
What’s Different About These Biscuits?
This isn’t your typical biscuit recipe. For starters, it uses a large amount of cream cheese which gives the biscuits richness and just a little tang. Secondly, forget the notion that you have to use cold ingredients to make southern biscuits. For this recipe, you use softened butter and cream cheese and it is much easier and more enjoyable to work into the dough.
White Lily Flour
But similar to most other biscuit recipes, Callie’s Buttermilk Biscuits are made with White Lily Flour. It has a lower protein content than other flours an helps achieve that fabulously light and tender texture that is so representative of a southern biscuit. If you can’t find this type of flour, I highly recommend ordering some online.
Happy Biscuit Making!
Resources
Callie’s Charleston Biscuits Website – you can order Callie’s Biscuits here. They come fully cooked and frozen and would be wonderful to have in your freezer for the holidays. They also have a biscuit of the month club which makes a wonderful gift. Oh, and they also have a recipe blog. 🙂
White Lily Flour Self Rising – 2 Lb Bag
Stainless Steel Biscuit Cutter Set
Callie’s Biscuits and Southern Traditions: Heirloom Recipes from Our Family Kitchen Note: I doubled the recipe from the book. The recipe didn’t make a very large quantity of dough and I find I roll my dough too thin when there’s not much of it. 🙂
More Biscuit Recipes
- Cat Head Biscuits
- Chocolate Chip Biscuits
- Bacon Cheddar Biscuits
- Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuits
- Red Lobster Biscuits
- 3-Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits
- Angel Biscuits
- 7-Up Biscuits
Callie’s Biscuits
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 cups self-rising flour, preferably White Lily, plus more for dusting
- 8 tablespoons butter cut in small cubes and at room temperature
- 1/2 cup cream cheese,, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with rack in the middle position.
- Place 4 cups flour in a large, wide bowl.
- Sprinkle the butter cubes and the cream cheese on top of the flour and use your fingers to “cut” it in until the mixture resembles cottage cheese (chunky with some loose flour).
- Make a well in the center and pour the buttermilk in the well.
- Use your hands or a rubber spatula to mix the buttermilk into the flour. Don’t overmix. The secret to tender biscuits is messing with the dough as little as possible. A wet and messy dough will form.
- Spread a good bit of flour out on a work surface. (I like to use a piece of parchment paper for my work surface.)
- Dump the dough onto the floured work surface. Flour a rolling pin and sprinkle flour on top of the dough.
- Roll the dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Do not knead the dough.
- Flour a 2-inch round biscuit cutter. Press the cutter straight down into the dough and straight back up. (No turning.) Repeat, cutting as many biscuits as you can.
- Roll out dough scraps one time to cut more biscuits. As long as the dough stays wet inside, you can use as much flour on the outside as you need. As I transfer the biscuits to a baking pan, I try to dust off any excess flour.
- Place biscuits on a baking pan with sides or a cast iron skillet. The sides of the biscuits should be touching. The recipe recommends lining the sides of the pan with parchment paper, but I did not.
- Brush the tops with melted butter. Place in oven and immediately reduce oven temp to 450 degrees. Bake 16 to 18 minutes, rotating the pan once.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Source: adapted from Callie’s Biscuits and Southern Traditions: Heirloom Recipes from Our Family Kitchen
Originally posted October 1, 2014.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
can you leave the cheese out
Should I use salted or sweet butter?
I saw Callie’s recipe on another food blog and it was just mediocre. However this recipe had the same ingredient amounts but the details in the instructions made a big difference. I even had to make my own self-rising flour from super cheap all-purpose flour and buttermilk from 2% but these turned out fantastic. This the best batch of biscuits I’ve ever made!
So I’m a Michigan boy but southern at heart. She crab soup, shrimp and grits, oyster roasts, and biscuits of course. I saw these on The Kitchen over the weekend and I had to try them. I’ll confess and say I was making a mess so went for the food processor to loosely combine-I’m sorry. But upside they were fantastic!! The taste, tang, texture were all perfect. I’ll bet even better when made correctly by hand. Love these and will always make this recipe. Next time I’m in Charleston I’ll be sure to visit the store. Thank you for sharing.
Hi. I saw you on The Kitchen today. Your biscuits look great. I haven’t tried them yet. I was going to bake biscuits for the day after our daughter’s wedding in July. Can these be made ahead and frozen? Baked or unbaked?
I just watched Carrie make the biscuits on The Kitchen, On The Food Network. She said she puts them in a 450-degree oven for the first 10 minutes and then lowers the temp to 400 degrees.
The temp and time cook differ from the show and this recipe which is correct
Using a gas oven, I just baked mine following the recommendations from this recipe, and they were too dark after 11 minutes. Going to try again using the recommendation from Pamela Stevens. Ovens cook differently. Going to watch them closer this go around.
What is the actual protein content of Whit Lily Flour (self-rising)?
Will other self-rising flours work?
White Lily All-Purpose Flour is made from soft winter wheat and has a protein count of approximately 9%. Carrie (of Callie’s Biscuits) prefers it over other flours. It tends to make a lighter, fluffier and flakier biscuit. King Arthur Flour makes a nice self-rising flour as well, but I still prefer White Lily for these biscuits. Not all flours are created equal.
I made these. They are so good. How do you store the leftovers for tomorrow?
I would wrap them in aluminum foil and place them in a ziptop bag and keep them on the counter. Then pop them in about 1 300 degree oven wrapped in foil to warm them a little.
This really is a must make biscuit recipe!
Live in the South and have made biscuits for scratch for over 30 Years and thought I had perfected my recipe…….until now. These are amazing!!!! Thank you for sharing!
(Can I just say I hate auto correct!!!)