I worked as a pastry cook. Everyone should know how to make my family’s 3-ingredient biscuits.

• I worked as a pastry cook, but I grew up cooking and baking alongside my Southern mom.
• Her family's easy biscuit recipe calls for 3 ingredients, which you mostly measure with your heart.
• After combining flour, buttermilk, and Crisco, you'll end up with light, fluffy biscuits. 

I'm a former pastry cook, but I fell in love with cooking while working in the kitchen alongside my Southern mom as a kid.

Being raised on gumbo, grits, and pimento cheese was an absolute gift, but nothing beats my mom's homemade biscuits.

Like all of the very best family recipes, these are made by feel, not by strict measurements, so use your hands and measure with your heart.

The biscuits are simple but a total crowd-pleaser — perfect for novice bakers.

You only need 3 ingredients for this quick recipe

All you need is White Lily self-rising flour, buttermilk, and Crisco.

If you've never worked with Crisco before, it's a shelf-stable vegetable shortening that's a staple in Southern cooking. You can use butter instead  — and I have many times — but I'm sticking to the basics.

You'll also need a large bowl, a pastry cutter, a biscuit cutter, and a metal baking pan. I recommend using a pan that's lighter in color because darker metals will make the biscuits too brown on the bottoms. 

Advice from my mom: Less is more

The best tip I learned from my mom that I took with me into professional kitchens is to never overwork your dough.

Biscuits are meant to be light, fluffy, and tender. Mixing your dough too much will lead to gluten development, which makes the biscuits tough and hard. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups White Lily self-rising flour
• ¾ cup Crisco
• ½ to ¾ cup buttermilk

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Measure out the self-rising flour into a large bowl.
3. Spoon the Crisco into the bowl with the flour, and using a pastry cutter, cut the Crisco into the flour until it creates pea-sized pieces of dough.
4. Pour in ½ cup of buttermilk and mix tenderly with your hands just until the dough is moist. Add more buttermilk as needed, but do not overwork the dough.
5. Once the dough is ready, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and flatten it with your hands into a 1-inch-tall mass.
6. Cut out biscuits with a lightly floured biscuit cutter, and place them in a metal baking pan.
7. Bake the biscuits for 20 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Serve with butter and jam.