“Four score and seventy five years ago—-just kidding, it wasn’t that long ago—I grew up in Lexington KY. It was the real South, and it was just me and my mom. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, in their farm kitchen, and got involved in cooking with my grandma. We made a lot of biscuits and other southern classics—and I was always watching to see how she did things, I always wanted to be a part of things. We always had family around, aunts and uncles and cousins, and there were always biscuits, cobbler, and pies ready to eat. Grandma always used White Lily® and always baked from scratch. And I still do: when I was competing on the Food Network I was always looking for White Lily® in the pantry. I tell everyone: I gotta have my soft winter wheat!
My partner and I opened Boomtown Biscuit and Whiskey here in Cincinnati in 2017. The menu is all elevated comfort food and what we call “frontier food”—but instead of gold, biscuits are our currency.
Our standard biscuits are made in the classic, flaky, laminated style—but when we had to shut down during the pandemic, making them that way just became too labor intensive so we re-developed the base into an amazing new drop biscuit. That’s what’s so great about biscuits—you can do so much with a single recipe and different execution. For instance, you can’t make a good cobbler without making a good biscuit. So you have to have White Lily®! I usually do a drop biscuit style for cobbler—it’s so approachable and adaptable.
This has been a really hard year for everyone in this country, in so many different ways. But if anything, that has made me more serious about finding ways to build community—and I think cooking is the ultimate connector. Everyone has got to eat. Food is a way to bring people to the table that might not associate with each other and have hard conversations. Sharing a meal—or even just a biscuit—with someone is an opportunity to come together and improve, not just ourselves but the world.”
Christian Gill featured in Netflix’s Snack vs. Chef and winner of Food Network’s Ultimate Thanksgiving Challenge.
Share
Yield
1 Dozen
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
8 min
Total Time
18 min
Ingredients
400 grams White Lily® Enriched Bleached Self-Rising Flour
35 grams sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
75 grams lard
160 grams frozen shredded butter
1 cup cold buttermilk
Medium mixing bow
Silicone spatula
1 ½ ounce ice cream scoop
Cookie sheet
Parchment paper
Scale
Instructions
Preheat convection oven to 405°F. If you don’t have a convection oven, preheat the oven to 420°F.
Combine White Lily® Self Rising Flour, sugar, and salt in a medium mixing bowl.
Add lard and using your fingers, work lard into dry ingredients until small pebbles of lard and flour form.
For the butter, I recommend freezing 1lb of butter the night before. Using a box shredder, shredding attachment on a food processer, or even a vitamix style blender, shred butter while frozen then weigh out 160g. Place shredded butter in a bowl back in the freezer until you are ready to use.
Once ready to use, lightly toss shredded butter in with lard and flour mixture. Using your hands or a silicone spatula, quickly work butter in to mix.
Pour cold buttermilk into the bowl and mix until all ingredients are combined and there are no stray crumbs.
Place parchment paper on cookie sheet. Using the ice cream scoop, portion out drop biscuits. Make sure to gently pack the scoop so each biscuit is the same size. Evenly distribute drop biscuits on cookie sheet as if you are making cookies.
Bake in oven for 8 minutes or until the outside is golden brown (approximately 12 minutes in a conventional oven).
Remove from the oven, let cool 5 minutes. Serve hot, cold, or however you like. Just eat em!
Nutrition
Calories (Calories from Fat ), Total Fat g (Saturated Fat g, Trans Fat g), Cholesterol mg, Sodium mg, Total Carbohydrate g (Dietary Fiber g, Sugars g), Protein g; Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A %, Vitamin C %, Calcium %, Iron %. *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Whether you're a novice, an expert, or somewhere in the middle, the White Lily® Baking Community on Facebook is the most welcoming place for you to connect, share, and get inspired by other bakers!
