Sourdough Starter is all you need to make these biscuits rise
I have noticed on the internet that many people are looking for a recipe for sourdough biscuits. But the recipes that I have seen so far use baking soda and baking powder to rise the biscuit. In my opinion this only makes the biscuit rise faster and I would not want my biscuits to rise fast because the flour would not have time to ferment properly. To make a true sourdough biscuit you must expect it to taste different because it is "Sourdough”.
If you have a sourdough starter you do not need baking soda or baking powder and you surely do not need sugar to make your biscuits. What you need is time. Anything fermented needs time. Our flours and grains are not what they use to be and we really do need to soak our grains for the sake of our health. Another thing is please read your labels and know what you are buying and buy organic as you can afford because we are being poisoned with fertilizer and pesticides and that is a whole different topic. We will get back to biscuits.
This is sourdough starter added to flour that I have already cut butter into.
I am by far not a expert of anything but fermenting foods takes time. If you are trying to ferment your flour you need to put sourdough in it and let it sit to ferment. You can soak grains and even sprout them but right now we are just talking about sourdough biscuits. So to make biscuits you must do something to them different than you would your sourdough bread or you would just make mini sourdough bread biscuit looking things.
What you need is butter, buttermilk and salt to make the biscuits different than the bread. When I make sourdough bread I only use flour, salt, sourdough starter and spring or filtered water. So to make biscuits I use Flour, butter, salt, buttermilk and sourdough starter. And time……………
Saying this you can make sourdough biscuits with only flour, salt, water and starter. You could make it using lard instead of butter but real lard is hard to find. If I use lard I make my own. Each variation will be a different texture and taste too. Is is all a matter of what you can and want it to be. But what it cannot be is just plain southern biscuits because they have their own taste and texture.
I will try and find time to make different variations of sourdough biscuits but for now I will start with this one.
So here below is how I make sourdough biscuits without baking powder, soda, yeast or sugar.
If you are going to make these and then post them on the internet please direct them back to my website so they will learn how to do things the more proper and traditional way as I do not try to make money on my website but share knowledge and try to get people to get back to basics.
I am a Great Grandmother now and I am trying my best to help any of the generations before me to get back to basics!
Recipe
One cast iron skillet
Large bowl
1 and 1/2 cup good grade all purpose flour
1/2 sick of real butter
1 teaspoon real salt
buttermilk
1 heaping cup of sourdough starter read more below about the starter
Add
1 and 1/2 cups of a good grade of all purpose flour (I prefer organic but a bit pricey) to the large bowl.
Add
1/2 stick of real butter, do not use margarin because that stuff is very bad for you
rub in the butter into the flour or cut it in. I use my finger tips and work the butter into the flour until a course looking flour
Then add
one heaping cup sourdough starter that has been fed about a half hour ago or more, enough time to just start seeing a rise.
Add 1 teaspoon good grade of salt
Add enough buttermilk to mix the mixture to look like cottage cheese.
Do not overwork the mixture, you are not trying to make dough. You need to keep it loose.
I had to get my husband to help me here so I could get better pictures. Take a large spoon and spoon out some of the biscuit dough.
Take your finger and remove the dough off the spoon and into the center of a small pan of plain flour
Shake the pan around to gently coat the dropped dough before you touch it then gently finish coating the dough with flour.
Toss the floured dough back and forth in both hands as if you were holding a hot potato. Be very gentle, you are trying to remove some of the flour.
Place in a greased or oiled skillet
Go back for more and scoop out, place in flour gently shake around coat the dough, toss back and forth to remove some of the flour, put in pan and take your two fingers and ever so gently press down the center just a tiny bit. Just very very lightly.
So now the pan is full and ready to go into a warm place to sit.
What I do is put mine in the oven, turn on the light and place a pan of warm water on the lower shelf. I will leave it here 3 to 4 hours. It all depends on your starter. My starter rises pretty quickly compaired to others. My starter was made from just flour and water. 
I took this picture after two hours but I still let it sit another hour and half.
Now I have baked the biscuits in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. You should let your biscuits rest a bit before removing so the slight condensation on the bottom will release the biscuits from the pan.
Here I am compairing the sourdough biscuit and a regular homemade biscuit made with no sourdough and using baking soda and powder. The top biscuit is sourdough and the bottom is regular.
This is a view of the top of the biscuits. The top one is the sourdough. Neither have been buttered or oiled, this is what they looked like after baking.
The big difference is the taste. If you are use to eating good old southern biscuits you may not like the taste of a sourdough biscuit because it is different than what you are use to.
So as you see you do not need baking soda, baking powder, commercial yeast or sugar to make sourdough biscuits.
