Lighter, easier buttermilk drop biscuits

If you like biscuits, I have a little discovery to share with you.  This is an incredibly easy recipe for buttermilk drop biscuits.  They can be whipped up in about 20 minutes - no need to cut butter, roll out dough, or haul out any machinery.  As an added bonus, they are also lighter - a little bit better for you -than the average biscuits!

In the words of my 7-year old: "these biscuits are so good!"

This recipe really caught my attention though I was a tad skeptical at first because it sounded maybe a little too good to be true.  Lighter, easy and quick-to-make buttermilk biscuits...and they taste good?  Luckily, it really turned out to be all those things!

I found this recipe in the latest issue of Cooking Light magazine.  I automatically thought about giving them a try for one of our leisurely weekend breakfasts.  We love our pancakes and dutch babies on any given Sunday but I'm always on the lookout for something new to cook up for my family.  These biscuits were a snap to get on the table.  I was able to make them fresh and serve them warm, alongside some scrambled eggs and turkey bacon for an early Sunday breakfast this past weekend.

The easy part of this recipe  was what really lured me in.  The process literally requires simply stirring everything together and dropping the batter onto the baking sheet with a spoon.  There is no butter to cut or roll pin to contend with!  The secret is to stir melted butter into cold buttermilk.   You know how warm, just melted butter will get rather unattractive and clumpy when it hits cold liquid?  That's precisely what you want to happen here.  Those clumps of butter will help create a fluffy, moist buttermilk biscuit!  It's kind of like pancake batter.

And these biscuits are lighter, and a little better for you, by having less butter (just 4 tablespoons for a dozen biscuits) and just a bit of canola oil in them.  And rather than purely all-purpose flour, these have some white whole-wheat flour in them, and you could even use fat-free buttermilk (I used the typical low-fat kind).

These biscuits are fluffy and tender.  I love the bit of whole wheat nuttiness you get from white whole-wheat flour.  I'm not necessarily always looking to cut fat or "go light" if it means sacrificing flavor but I don't usually want a super heavy biscuit that leaves my fingers completely greasy and feels like a meal unto itself.  Plus, I think a lighter biscuit makes a lot of sense given all the stuff we're likely to put on or have with them - whether it be butter, honey, jam, or bacon and eggs as in my case here.

These biscuits are good all by themselves and doesn't even need all those accompaniments.  The little guy's reaction was "mmm..." at first bite and my husband and I were impressed by how good they tasted!  This is a great way to use up buttermilk and I plan to make this recipe a part of my regular repertoire.  In fact, it has not only shown up at breakfast but also been a part of dinner this week!  I'm really glad I clipped the recipe out of the magazine and gave it a try.  It's turned out to be a great little discovery (I'm not often this enthusiastic about a non-chocolate recipe)!