Taking a tip from my friend Robert Lortz, I made square (or rectangular) biscuits today.

There are no scraps that you have to re-roll and the biscuits rise higher because you didn’t force them into a biscuit cutter. You just cut the dough with a table knife or sharp knife and move them onto a cookie sheet with a spatula. You can see the results.

My biscuit recipe is slightly different than Lortz’s but it is pretty similar. Rather than shredding the butter, you cut the stick into little slices and blend them into the flour with a pastry blender. The real difference is that you fold the dough into thirds and roll it out three times to make some buttery layers.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tb baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1/3 cup cold, unsalted butter (2/3 of a quarter pound stick.)
• 1 cup plus about 2 Tb buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 450˚ F.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a bowl.
3. Cut the butter into thin slices and put them all into the flour.
4. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until uniform, but with some small butter lumps remaining.
5. Add the cup of buttermilk and mix in with a fork. Add a little more buttermilk if all the flour isn’t all incorporated.
6. Roll out the dough on a floured board or pastry marble.
7. Fold the dough and thirds and roll it out again three times to form some butter layers in the dough.
8. Cut the dough rectangle into squares (or rectangles) using a knife.
9. Then use a spatula to move them to a cookie sheet.
10. Bake for 10 minutes.

The result is tall, fluffy, buttery biscuits. Enjoy them!

• Recipes