Preheat oven to 425°F.

Prepare your cake pan, pizza pan or ovenproof skillet. Butter the pan liberally.

Sift together the salt, baking powder and two cups of flour in a bowl. The bowl should be wide and not too deep.

Scatter the ¼" size chilled butter over the flour and work in by rubbing fingers with fat and flour, like a snapping motion. Continue doing this until they are medium-sized round pieces, like well-crumbled feta cheese.

Do the same with the ½" size shortening pieces.

Shake the bowl occasionally to allow the larger pieces of fat to show themselves, so you can rub them out.

After this, place the bowl in the fridge for about five minutes.

Take the bowl out of the fridge and make a deep well in the center of the flour with the back of your hand. Pour ¾ cup of buttermilk into the well and reserve ¼ cup of buttermilk to the side.

Stire with a rubber spatula, using broad circular strokes to quickly pull the flour into the milk.

Mix until JUST combined. The dry ingredients should be moistened and the dough should begin to pull away from sides of the bowl. If there is some flour remaining on the bottom or sides of the bowl, stir in one to four tablespoons of the reserved ¼ cup buttermilk. Just enough until the dough is shaggy and wettish. If it becomes too wet, add a bit more flour when shaping the dough.

Lightly sprinkle board or other clean surface with the reserved flour. Turn the dough out and sprinkle the top lightly with flour. With floured hands, fold the dough in half and pat dough out into ⅓ to ½" thick round, being mindful of the amount of flour your using. Flour, if needed, and fold again in half. If the dough is still clumply, repeat folding procedure.

With well-floured hands, pat dough out into ½" thick round for normal biscuit, ¾" for tall biscuit and 1" for giant biscuits.

Brush off any visible flour from top and sides of biscuit. For each biscuit, dip a 2 ½" round cutter into reserved flour and cut out the biscuits. MAKE SURE YOU DON"T TWIST THE CUTTER. Go up and down, don't twist. Start cutting out at the outer edge and cut very close together.

Scraps may be combined to make additional biscuits, but they'll be tougher than the first batch.

Use a metal spatula or scrapers to move biscuits to your prepared pan. Bake on the top rack for about 10-14 minutes or until lightly golden brown. After six minutes in oven, rotate pan then continue baking for about four to eight minutes.

When biscuits are finished and right out of the oven, brush the tops with the softened or melted butter.

Turn the biscuits out upside down on a plate and enjoy hot.