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Butter Rolls From Rick Bragg’s Mom
The Best Cook in the Whole World
Ingredients
  • subheading: For the biscuits:
  • 3 to 4 cups self-rising flour
  • 4 tablespoons lard or Crisco
  • ¾ cup buttermilk
  • ¼ cup water
  • For the sweetened, spiced milk
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  • ½ cup whole milk
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 stick cold, unsalted butter
Steps
  1. Preheat oven to 350 to 400 degrees.
  2. Lay out sheets of waxed paper to lay the biscuits on.
  3. Sift all the flour into a large bowl. Using your fingers, create a large bowl within the flour. Leave an inch or two of flour at the bottom.
  4. Work the pieces of Crisco into the bottom of the flour.
  5. Carefully pour most of the buttermilk and water into the hole, saving two tablespoons or so in case your mixture goes dry. Gradually work the flour into the liquid and fat, pushing the flour down from the sides into the wet ingredients. You don’t want sticky or dry, just slowly work toward the middle.
  6. Roll the finished dough into rough balls, no bigger than half dollars, then flatten them between your hands to the size of silver dollars.
  7. Pat out about a dozen small biscuits, or a few more if you have dough left over. Sprinkle about half the cinnamon lightly over the tops. Cover with the other sheet of waxed paper.
  8. In a clean bowl, pour the sweetened condensed milk. Then fill the empty can with whole milk and add that to the bowl. Add the sugar, vanilla and the rest of the cinnamon to the bowl. Don’t worry about meticulously mixing the cinnamon.
  9. Cube the whole stick of butter and let it go swimming in the milk mixture.
  10. Pour the liquid into a one-quart baking dish or pan, about 8x8 inches.
  11. Gently drop the biscuits into the liquid. Press each down and let it bob back up. Do not crowd them in the dish. Leave about an inch of space between.
  12. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Then take a large spoon and turn each dumpling over. It should be coated in the liquid and should remain moist through the rest of the baking time.
  13. Bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until the liquid has formed a thick soup. It shouldn’t evaporate or turn to a true caramel, but until the milk has cooked up into the biscuits and they have begun to brown on top.
  14. “You want ‘em done, not something soggy but golden brown and still kind of creamy and buttery. The soup needs to be still thin enough to spoon out and drizzle some on the butter rolls.” They should be moist throughout, more like a buttery dumpling than a flaky biscuit.
  15. Also, you can cheat and use canned refrigerated biscuits.
 

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