Apple Butter Ham Biscuits Appetizer

Apple Butter Ham Biscuits, a traditional Southern party appetizer, makes a delightful addition to your biscuit bar.  The perfect all-year round appetizer, apple butter ham biscuits are a party-pleasing way to use up ham leftovers.

Originally Published May 5, 2011 Revised 2019

“If I had a dollar for every apple butter ham biscuit I have helped prepare, I would buy more shoes.  Lots of shoes!  Giggles   Joyce Pinson, Friends Drift Inn

Apple Butter Ham Biscuits Recipe At-A-Glance

Prep Time – 20 minutes  Cook Time 15 – 20 minutes – Total Time 40 minutes

Yield 12 biscuits

Ingredients   Self-Rising Flour – Unsalted Butter – Buttermilk – Bacon Drippings – Ham – Friends Drift Inn Apple Butter – Greens for Garnish

Equipment  Large bowl – Whisk –  Stirring Spoon –  Pastry Cutter (or two knives) – Cast Iron Skillet –  Biscuit Cutter (or water glass)

Why Does Apple Butter Go with Ham Biscuits?

Friends Drift Inn Spiced Apple Butter

Apple Butter is one of my favorite fruit spreads!  Especially for fall – but right on up through Appalachia’s Little Winters and springtime.  I talk a lot about apple butter and why I love it in our What is Apple Butter article.

Ham biscuits are my favorite use for apple butter!  They are the ultimate appetizer for Southern inspired entertaining!

Apples and pork are a natural pairing.  I never thought about it much.  Growing up in a rural community of Germanic descendants, putting apples and ham on the table was an everyday occurrence.

Friends Drift Inn Apple Butter is a highly concentrated fruit spread like apple sauce, only cooked down and spiced.  It is thick, smooth, and rich in flavors.

There are no added preservatives or food colorings.  It is an old-fashioned blend of lush apples, sugar, and spices. 

Apple Butter by nature does not contain fats or salt.

By combining apple butter with a salty slice of country ham you get a combination of richly flavored fruit, which cuts the fat and salt in ham.  Apple butter and ham is one of those pairing you will come back to again and again.

Making Ham Biscuit Sandwiches – Tips and Traditions

Here in Appalachia, most families have a dozen recipes for biscuits.  There are cathead biscuits, rolled biscuits, dropped biscuits, cheese biscuits, angel biscuits and even half-pound biscuits.

Biscuits and gravy are the fuel of the Hillbilly Nation.  We make no apologies.  We know what is good. 

Is Louisville part of the Hillbilly Nation?  That is up for debate.  But I can tell you no Kentucky Derby Party is complete without country ham biscuits!

As a habit, I do not mention brands on this site except in a cultural reference.  But if you live in Appalachia, you know the only flour to make biscuits with is Hudson Cream Flour.

How this Kansas brand endeared itself to mountain folk is a story for another time.  But Hudson Cream Flour rules in the mountains.

A few tips about making ham biscuits:

• Use a flour made with hard winter wheat mixed with softer varieties. 
• If you are not using a self-rising flour, be sure your baking powder has not expired.
• Preheat the cast iron skillet in the oven. 
• buttermilk, shake it up.  And don’t use low-fat buttermilk! 
• Do not overwork the dough.
• When you cut the dough, just stamp it.  Do not twist, you will overwork the dough.
• Biscuit cutters work best, but in a pinch, you can use a water glass or orange juice can.
• When ready to put biscuits in the skillet, place in bacon drippings.  Then flip over.  This saves you from brushing the tops.

Bacon drippings and cast iron makes the bottoms brown; giving the ham biscuit a stable foundation.

Can I Substitute Oil or Butter for Bacon Drippings?

Here’s the thing.  Bacon drippings add a little pop of bacon flavor to the biscuits.  With bacon drippings in cast iron, you will get a biscuit with a nicely browned bottom. 

A brown bottom biscuit will be more stable to split and stuff; let alone feast upon.

Do what you want.  But here at the big red barn it is always bacon drippings with cast iron skillet biscuits. 

Kentucky and Country Ham

Leftover Ham or Kentucky Country Ham?

You can use whatever kind of ham you want for this recipe.  But for an authentic experience, try a country ham.  Look for Kentucky Proud hams!

My grandma’s people were known for making some of the best country hams in Cynthiana.  It was before my time, but I have been in several smokehouses. They evoke a strong emotional response.

The wood smell permeates your clothes.  Heritage methods of curing, the smoke, the salt, the sugar….it takes me back in time.  I connect to family history. 

There is a family story about a city-slicker who came to the farm and bought a whole hog.  When the meat was prepared, he was angry having received only two hams.  He insisted there should be four.

Everyone knows that only the back legs of a porker are used for hams – right?

What is a Country Ham?

Unlike a “city ham” which is wet cured, country ham is dry cured.  It is salty.  So salty that some go to the trouble of rinsing the ham before they start the final cooking process.

Real Simple’s Dawn Perry writes about shopping and storing country ham.

Perry defines country ham:

A southern favorite, these hams are dry-cured, meaning they’re rubbed with salt and seasonings, smoked, then aged anywhere from 4 months to 3 years. Salty and chewy, the intensely flavored meat is usually served with biscuits or incorporated into casseroles and salads. It’s sold both uncooked and cooked, and mostly bone-in.

We take country ham very seriously here in Kentucky.  At the 2018 Kentucky State Fair, a country ham was auctioned for charity to the tune of $2.8 million according to the  Courier Journal. 

But we are not the only ones obsessed with country ham.

Country Ham Fans

Serious Eats J. Kenji López-Alt wrote an entire guide to ham buying for the holidays.

He goes a step further than Dawn – and right to the heart of the matter.

County Ham IS the South’s answer to Italian Prosciutto. 

Country hams are cured with a dry rub, much in the manner of an Italian Prosciutto, and, like prosciutto, they are hung to dry in carefully temperature- and humidity-controlled environments. 

Here in the US, we often romanticize European food customs.  Prosciutto is highly coveted.  But maybe, just maybe Kentucky prosciutto is the next big thing. 

The University of Kentucky, along with several forward thinking farmers and chefs, is currently documenting flavor profiles of various heritage pork breeds and methods of curing pork to truly have a “Kentucky Prosciutto.” 

Pretty cool stuff!  If you are interested contact the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture Chef-in-Residence, Bob Perry. 

Tips to Prepare Apple Butter Ham Biscuits

To keep things less frenzied, especially if preparing for a party, make  biscuits a day ahead of time. 

Southern Living is so passionate about how to split a biscuit they made a whole video about it.  

Here’s what they say:

At Southern Living, there’s only one way to split a biscuit. And that’s with a fork. Take a fork and poke it all the way around the edge of the biscuit to the center. This way, you don’t smash it by cutting it with a knife and it stays flaky and fluffy. And you have a perfectly flat surface for spreading jam or butter.

It is not like me to disagree with Southern Living.  But for ham biscuits, I would rather have a very precise cut to make a level platform for the ham and apple butter.  Using a fork sometimes makes the bottom crumble – and for this recipe I advise against it.  

Some ideas I have learned along the way include:

• If the apple butter biscuits are going to be dressed and sit awhile, use dairy butter to spread a barrier on both the top and bottom cut sides, so biscuits do not get soggy. 
• If you are adding greens to the biscuit, be sure and pat them dry.

Biscuit Bars, Holiday Appetizers and Leftover Ham

Biscuit Bars are a fun way to create a down-home grazing table.  Depending on what toppings you offer, the biscuits could be served up as breakfast fare, brunch nibbles or cocktail appetizers.

They would be awesome bites for a fall backyard wedding! 

How Many Ham Biscuits Per Person?

In the Real Simple article cited above, Dawn Perry recommends about 3 ounces of country ham per person as an appetizer, and 4 ounces a person for the main course. 

With this size ham biscuit sandwich, one biscuit per person is the norm.

Besides Friends Drift Inn Apple Butter for Thanksgiving and Christmas appetizers, perk things up with  blackberry bourbon jam or  peach habanero jam in the New Year. 

How do you make a great ham biscuit for a biscuit bar?  While we absolutely love a cathead biscuit, big and fluffy, the most successful biscuit bars offer up a range of spreads to compliment the star of the show.  

Ham Biscuits and Kentucky Derby Parties

While it is true apple butter ham biscuits are a natural at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter they are one of my favorite bites for Mother’s Day brunches, and Kentucky Derby Season.

Ham biscuits are especially good paired with a classic Southern appetizer, deviled eggs.

What goes better with apple butter ham biscuits than a good bourbon cocktail? We love a Mint Julep cocktail, but  Peach Sweet Tea and Bourbon Cocktail  or a Bourbon Apple Cider Cocktail works too!

  How Kentucky is that?

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