Angel Biscuits: A Sneak-Peek Recipe to Bake this Summer - No. 125

Like potato chips, you can’t eat just one

Angel Biscuits with country ham for an afternoon baby shower on my porch last week.

I’m thrilled to share a recipe I’m testing for my new—not yet written and not yet named—book on Southern baking.

Angel Biscuits. They will go in the Biscuits chapter of this book that will tell the story behind Southern baking, and the biscuits will follow cornbread and precede cakes, pies, cookies, and other goodies.

While most biscuits rely on the combination of baking soda and buttermilk or possibly baking powder and sweet (plain) milk to help them rise, this recipe also calls for a little yeast to help them bake up even lighter and fluffier.

Which is why they were named Angel Biscuits, being light and airy they just seem to float to heaven. They’re also known as Riz Biscuits, an even older (1860s) term for biscuits that have yeast added to help them “rise” so they have, I suppose, in past tense, “riz.”

I just love this sort of biscuit, a cross between a biscuit and a yeast roll. They’re fabulous fresh out of the oven but also good at room temp, too. And the recipe makes a ton, about 60 to 70 small ones and a good four dozen larger biscuits.