Recipe: Sylvia's Restaurant Biscuits

Sylvia's Restaurant Biscuits
Source: Ruth of Sylvia's Restaurant
Makes 24

1/2 cup Vegetable shortening (and More for the pan)
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups milk
4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease an 11 by 7 inch pan with shortening.

Stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl until blended. Make a well in the center of this dry mixture and add the milk, 1/2 cup shortening, and eggs. Mix the wet ingredients with your hands until the eggs and milk are blended. (There will still be some lumps of shortening.) Slowly work the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with your fingertips. The finished dough should be soft but not sticky, so you may have to add a little more flour if it seems too wet, or stop mixing before all the flour is added if it seems too dry.

Turn the biscuit dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 3 1/2-inch rounds and place side by side on the greased baking pan. (The biscuits should be touching but not overlapping.) Reroll the dough as many times as necessary to cut all the biscuits possible. Let the biscuits rest in a warm place 10 to 15 minutes (on top of the warm oven is a good place).

Bake until the biscuits are deep golden brown and light to touch when you pick one up, about 20 minutes. If some of the biscuits are browning more quickly than others, rotate the pan after about 10 minutes. Break apart and serve.