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This is a very simple recipe that makes a soft bread-like biscuit, good for butter and jam or for sopping up gravy. (It is not a British tea biscuit at all.) The original recipe came from about.com, in the southern cooking section; this is my version. My apologies about the measurements; I couldn't figure out how to convert them.

Drop Biscuits

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp double-acting baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda; very important, don't leave it out)

3 Tbsp butter

1/8 to 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup milk

Set an oven rack in the center position. Preheat the oven to 425 F (218.3 C).

Start by souring the milk; measure the lemon juice, dump the milk in on top, and let it sit while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

In a medium size bowl, mix flour with other dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until the particles are the size of peas. You can make them uniformly fine, so the butter is spread evenly through the flour like a commercial biscuit mix, or you can leave tiny lumps of butter--either works.

Pour in the sour milk--lumps are good but not required--and stir till the dough is evenly wet. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl. In order to get tender biscuits, do this stirring with a spoon and NEVER an electric mixer of any kind; biscuit dough is like pie dough and benefits from gentle handling. If it's extremely dry or sticky, you can fix that by stirring in a teaspoon or two of water or a tablespoon of flour.

Once the dough is completely mixed, drop it by heaping tablespoonfuls (or servingspoonfuls) onto a cold, ungreased baking sheet. Leave room for the biscuits to expand. Four rows of three biscuits should fit easily onto a standard 12" x 18" baking sheet. (30.5 x 45.7 cm)

Bake for eight to fifteen minutes, depending on how hot your oven runs and how wet/sticky the dough was. Don't set a timer and walk away--these biscuits need checked every few minutes. They're done when the peaks are just starting to brown. Makes 12.

Notes:

• If you prefer sweet biscuits, you can add up to 1/4 cup sugar to the dough, plus sweet spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.
• If you prefer savory, you can use garlic salt instead of salt, add in dried herbs and spices, and add a cup of shredded cheese with the milk.
• If you prefer cultured buttermilk to sour milk, leave out the lemon juice and use 1 1/4 cups buttermilk.
• The baking soda is important because it reacts with the lemon juice or buttermilk to do a major part of the rising.
• IMPORTANT: If you put cheese in this dough, grease the baking sheet! OY, I didn't the first time... what a mess!