When it comes to food writing, grandmothers aren’t just a tired trope—they’re an exhausted one. But my grandmother hated cooking. Despised it. She used canned, boxed and frozen products as much as possible, so she could avoid chopping, slicing and dicing, to say nothing of measuring.

Unsurprisingly, her biscuits were always store-bought and frozen. They were fine, but this shortcut of hers laid the foundation for a shortcoming of mine: I was a so-called Southern woman who couldn’t bake a decent buttermilk biscuit.

Sure, I could make a good drop biscuit or even a decent whipped cream biscuit, but the classic buttermilk biscuit evaded me. No matter what I did, they always baked up flat. I even ordered the “special” Southern flour everyone had said was the key to better biscuits. No dice. (I won’t say the name of the company, but this flour is named after a flower.)

But when I was in the Milk Street office last year, I was able to taste an early version of Chris’ 2-1 High-Hat Buttermilk Biscuits. I wouldn’t say I was skeptical. I believed Chris was capable of make a good biscuit. He is an accomplished baker and has plenty of folksy credentials, but he’s not Southern. Turns out that doesn’t matter. Chris did what my grandmother could not. I can finally make a decent biscuit. (I should have known the recipe would be legit, based on how good our cornbread is.)

The recipe uses an easy-to-remember 1-2 formula—1 tablespoon sugar; 1 teaspoon each baking powder, baking soda and kosher salt; one stick of butter); 1 cup of buttermilk; and 2 cups all-purpose flour. All ones and twos and easy to remember. They’re also quite speedy: I had them in the oven in about half an hour. (The only change I made was cutting them into squares instead of rounds, because I could not find my biscuit cutter.)

As promised, these biscuits baked up high, thanks to a double dose of chemical leavening agents and a thrice-folding method that gives them a layered structure. There’s also a whole stick of butter, fully worked into the dough, to keep things tender and tasty.

How does mastering biscuits factor into my meal planning? Well, breakfast is sorted for the week. A warmed biscuit and a couple of fried eggs is all need in the morning. Plus, they freeze and reheat really well. (Freeze them on a sheet pan, then transfer to a freezer bag and remove as much air as possible; I use a straw to suck it out.)

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.