Grandma's Homemade Biscuits

Is there anything better than homemade bread?  The aroma, the taste, the flavor? These classic pull-apart 'biscuits' will warm your heart as well as fill your tummy. 

 

I have many fond memories of my dad's mother making these on a regular basis.  Our family loves them so much, that I made it my mission to take the time and spend a day with Grandma to learn her recipe (or lack there of) and how to make them myself.

 

By lack of recipe, its not that she really doesn't have one -- it's more that she makes them from memory, so there's really not a hard and fast written recipe to follow.  After a few HUGE mistakes (making them on my own), as well as several successes -- I finally found a combination of literally throwing things together and guessing, that matches Grandma's finished product.

 

Here's the recipe my family knows and loves:

 

12 cups of whole milk (3/4 gallon)

2 - 5 pound bags of flour + approximately 2 cups

1/3 cup of lard + 2-3 tablespoons

2 1/2 cups of sugar + 1 tablespoon

3 packets of quick rise yeast

1 cup of warm water

1/8 - 1/4 cup of salt

 

1.  In a large stock pot - pour in your 3/4 gallon of milk and scald.
2.  Once milk is scalded, remove from heat.  Dump in sugar, and 1/3 cup of lard. 
3.  Mix until lard, and sugar have dissolved.
4. While sugar and lard are dissolving, mix your 3 packets of yeast and 1 cup of warm water and 1 tablespoon of sugar together in a bowl, mix together, and proof your yeast.
5. When stock pot of scalded milk as become luke warm, and sugar and lard have dissolved.  Add 1 - 5 pound bag of flour and mix until well combined.
6. Add in your proofed yeast mixture to the milk mixture in stock pot.  Stir till well combined.
7. Add the second 5 pound bag of flour, and stir until well combined.  This will be hard to stir, and the dough should really be starting to thicken up.  
8. Once you have the flour mixture well combined, dump out the stock pot of dough onto a well floured surface.
9. Knead the dough (8-10 minutes) or until it becomes elastic.
10. Form into a huge round disk, and place into a very large well greased pan.  Spread a layer of butter or lard over the top surface of the dough in bowl.  Cover with a flour sack towel, and let rise in a warm place until double it's size.
11. Once double it size, punch down the dough, re-spread more butter over the top surface of dough, re-cover with flour sack towel, and let rise again.
12. Once dough has risen for the 2nd time, punch it down, and form your biscuits.  To form your rolls, you will need a knife, and you'll pull a small bunch of dough, a little less than half a palm sized, and roll into 2-2.5 inch long rolls.  These should be placed in a 9x13 well greased pan, 3 rolls wide, by 8 rolls long. (24 rolls per pan).  This recipe will take about 5 - 9x13 pans.
13. Once all of your dough has been formed into rolls, you'll need to let these rise again, until they are double their size.
14. Once the rolls have raised, you'll cook in a 375 degree oven for approximately 35 minutes.  To ensure the rolls are done when you pull them out of the oven, give the cooked rolls a wrap on top with your knuckles.  It should sound some-what hollow.
15. When you pull the rolls out of the oven, you'll want to butter the tops.  When tops are buttered, dump out of pan onto a flour sack towel, and spread some butter over the bottom and sides of rolls.  This will help to keep them soft and moist. 
16. Keep rolls covered with flour sack towels until cool.  When cool, bag up in plastic freezer bags.  These freeze exceptionally well, and if you're not going to eat them immediately I would recommend keeping them in the refrigerator, or freezing them -- as without preservatives, these will mold a little more quickly than something you buy in a store.