Recipe: Billowy Biscuits for the holidays

This holiday-perfect biscuit recipe hails from Maya-Camille Broussard’s new “Justice of the Pies” cookbook ( Clarkson Potter, $30) and comes with a charming story. Broussard, whose book weaves stories about social justice heroes in among the mouth-watering recipes, is the owner of Chicago’s Justice of the Pies. (You may have seen her on the Netflix show, “Bake Squad,” too.)

But this story is about a film set a few years back, where Broussard was keeping craft services stocked with pies and quiche. One morning, she brought these biscuits, which delighted the film crew so thoroughly that when she brought another batch the next day, a few crew members were already waiting for them and promptly paged everyone else about the arrival of “The Biscuit Lady.”

“The secret is the cream cheese,” she says in the book. “It helps the biscuits retain their moisture and bake up a crunchy exterior and a soft, melt-in-your-mouth interior.”

Billowy Biscuits

Makes 12 to 14 biscuits

INGREDIENTS

4 cups (544g) unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

24 tablespoons (3 sticks) very cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces

8 ounces (225g) very cold cream cheese, cut into 2-inch pieces

1½ cups (378g) buttermilk

1 large egg

Flour, for rolling out

DIRECTIONS

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. (If your oven has a convection option, preheat to 325 degrees.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Add the butter and cream cheese. Use a pastry cutter, a fork or your fingers to cut the butter and cream cheese into the flour until the pieces are no bigger than a pea.Pour in the buttermilk and, using your hands, combine the flour and buttermilk together until the mixture is no longer dry.

With the dough still in the bowl, turn and fold the dough over onto itself until the dough is sticky and the flour is fully incorporated with the dough. If the dough is too dry or if there is a bit of flour in the bottom of the bowl that won’t mix with the dough, add ½ tablespoon of buttermilk to the bottom of the bowl to help the flour get incorporated.

Generously flour your work surface with 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour. Place the biscuit dough on the work surface and, using your hands, knead the dough together while pinching any tears or lines in the dough. Add another dash of flour if your work surface becomes sticky.

Flour a rolling pin and your hands. Set a small bowl of flour near your work surface. Roll out the dough until it is 1-inch thick. Using a 3-inch round biscuit cutter (or a similar size of overturned drinking glass), dip the biscuit cutter into the bowl of flour and then cut out a biscuit round. Repeat, dipping the cutter in the flour between the cuts and cutting biscuits as close together as possible to minimize the amount of scraps. Collect the scraps and knead them together, then press 1-inch thick and cut a few more biscuits (discard any remaining scraps).