Measure all of your dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add cold butter cubes to the dry ingredients and, using a pastry cutter or your fingers, squeeze, pinch, and mix in the cold butter until you have a mixture of flat pieces and crumbly pea sized bits of butter mixed into the flour. Add the cheddar and chives and toss to combine.

Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the cold buttermilk. Gently bring the wet and dry together until you have a fairly uniform, loose dough. The flour won't look all mixed in and that's okay. It will come together.

Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Using your hands, gently bring it together into a rough square. With a bench scraper or knife, cut into four smaller squares. Stack the pieces of biscuit dough on top of each other. Smush it all down into a square again. Repeat this cutting and stacking procedure 2 more times.

Pat the dough into a rectangle at least ½ inch thick. Using a 2 or 3 inch biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out your biscuits. Gather your scraps as you go, gently re-form them together, and cut as many biscuits as you can. You should get 6 to 8 biscuits, depending on the size of your cutter.

Place your biscuits on a parchment paper lined small sheet pan. Put the sheet pan of biscuits in the freezer or refrigerator to chill while you preheat the oven to 450°F.

Remove biscuits from the freezer and brush the tops of the biscuits with an egg wash of one egg whisked with one tablespoon of water or milk. Bake in a 450° oven for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown.