For The Best Biscuits, Make Them Cowboy-Style

If you ignore the ever-present dust, the long days, the cold nights, and the coffee that would put hairs on your chest, life on the cowboy trail wasn't all that bad. In fact, one of a cowboy's staple foods remains a mouthwatering treat to this day: sourdough biscuits. Sometimes these were made with baking powder and sometimes buttermilk, but more often than not, they were cooked in a Dutch oven, a method we think produces some of the very best biscuits. We like them served warm straight from the pot, alongside a plate of cowboy-style beans studded with salt pork — delicious!

You don't have to shell out on pricey Le Creuset cookware to make your sourdough biscuits, either, as there are lots of popular, cheaper versions out there. If you're going for the full cowboy experience and are cooking your biscuits on an open fire, make up the dough using your sourdough starter, cut it into rounds, and pop them in a greased Dutch oven. You can either let your biscuits bake on hot coals for around 30 minutes or slide them into the oven heated to around 375 degrees Fahrenheit for the same amount of time. It's up to you whether you want to flip them or not (it can be useful to make sure they don't scorch), but when they're ready, it's best to eat them straightaway, as many hungry cowboys have surely done.

Authentic cowboy-style sourdough biscuits aren't like the flaky, fluffy accompaniments to sausage gravy we know and love. They are a little more dense but still tasty, and it's easy to understand why they were as popular as sourdough bread among cowboys on the trail. That said, there are a few pitfalls to avoid, particularly if you're preparing these biscuits the old-fashioned way by cooking outdoors.

Sourdough starters are not fans of the cold, so if the temperatures do creep downward, it's worth having a little baking powder handy to ensure your biscuits rise, especially if you don't want to wait around. Be careful not to add too much flour to your biscuits, or they could turn out like hockey pucks, and be sure to preheat your Dutch oven, a key step wherever you're cooking. There's a good reason for this, as putting the biscuits on a hot surface helps them spread but also gives them a delicious crust.

Although baking a sourdough loaf in a Dutch oven comes with all sorts of complications, sourdough biscuits are their (slightly) simpler cousin and can be eaten just like their traditional counterparts. Slap a fried egg and sausage patty between two for a hearty breakfast, or dip one into a mess of beans for a delicious taste of the Old West.