Cutting in

Recipes for biscuits, scones, and pastry dough often call for cutting chilled butter into the flour mixture. If making the dough by hand, cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two table knives. The resulting mixture should be coarse with pea-sized pieces of butter. If using a food processor, pulse the cold butter into the flour in short bursts, just until the same consistency is reached.