Biscuits!

[fadedwings]

My husband loves biscuits. I’ve become a big fan as well. He doesn’t cook so it’s all up to me. Over the years I’ve been trying different recipes and seeing what I like best.

For a while I was using the Food Processor Baking Powder Biscuits out of the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook but then I saw this one over at Kitchen Mage and liked that too but it wasn’t sweet enough for me so I made changes and the end result is pretty much making it a mix of those two recipes.

Keep in mind these are American Biscuits and that I’m from New England…My idea of what a biscuit should taste like isn’t not necessarily what yours is.

[recipe with photos under the cut]




Preheat the oven to 400 F.

2 ¼ cups Flour
¾ tsp Salt
2 or 3 Tbsp Sugar
4 tsp Baking Powder
½ cup (1 stick) very cold Butter
1 cup very cold Milk

I dump the flour, salt sugar and baking powder in my food processor.* I pulse a few times to mix.

Then I take the butter out of the fridge and cut it up into pieces.



Then I dump that in the food processor and then pulse until the mixture is mostly like very course cornmeal in texture.



Then I dump all that into a mixing bowl.



In the bowl I add the milk and mix with a wooden spoon. I mix until it is just mixed. They tend to fluff up less if you over mix them.



Then I dump this out onto a floured counter or board and shape until it’s sort of square like. Then I cut this into mostly square like pieces and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.


In this picture three are already on the cookie sheet. I usually get about 14 per batch.

I cook these in the oven for about 10-12 minutes. Usually ten minutes but my oven is a little funny so your mileage may vary.

Then when slightly golden I take these out of the oven and slide onto a cooling rack. I don’t wait until they cool off too much to eat them though. These are perfect when fresh and warm.



* I have a small food processor that I think holds about 3 cups maybe so I usually use that.

I’ve also made these without it using a pastry blender or my (clean) fingers.

Comments

[acelightning]

Baking powder biscuits (and pie crust, and a number of other things usually made with ordinary flour) have the best texture when made with lard. Use lard in the dough, and then butter the freshly baked biscuits, and you have the best of both world - the mellow flakiness of a lard-shortened dough, and the unique flavor of butter.

And biscuits aren't just for breakfast! Down South they eat them with fried chicken at dinnertime (don't forget the pan gravy). Or serve biscuits instead of potatoes with a ham steak. Or just have them with whatever random entree you feel like eating ;-)

Leftover biscuits keep at room temperature, covered loosely, for several days at least. They also freeze quite well. Reheat them in a regular oven or toaster oven (i.e., dry heat), so they will regain their texture. Reheating biscuits in a microwave makes them so crumbly you need to eat them with a spoon.

[fadedwings]

I've never been a fan of lard. I've done the vegetarian thing off and on since my teens so lard isn't by go to thing. It isn't even easy to find around here in the grocery stores.

I do eat biscuits for more than breakfast though. But we never have left overs that last more than a half a day, my husband finishes them off long before the next day comes :)

[acelightning]

The only things I use lard for all the time are biscuits and pie crust. (And you're right - it seems to be getting harder to find in stores, although there are enough Hispanic enclaves around that I can usually get lard somewhere.)

Sometimes I make a butter pie crust, for specific pies. Scones are always made with butter, and always sweeter than biscuits, and almost always brushed with a liquid and sprinkled rather heavily with sugar before baking. My default scone recipe these days is from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible, and it contains both butter and heavy cream, as well as ground ginger and finely diced candied ginger. They smell so good baking that it's hard to wait until they've cooled off enough to eat!

[weaverbird]

Mmmmmmmmm, biscuits! This recipe is almost exactly like mine (I'm a New Englander, too). Seriously yummy. I've always used a pastry cutter, but next time I'm going to try the food processor. Thanks for the idea and for posting!

[hazel]

That recipe, minus the sugar, is pretty identical to what I would call a scone. And I like them with butter and honey and a pot of tea. :D

(When I'm making scones I always rub the butter into the flour with my fingers, and then knead the dough a bit after the milk is mixed in with a table knife. They're a lot of fun to make on cold winter weekends.)

[fadedwings]

Yeah I've made scones too, though I don't really have one single go to recipe for them. Yum!

[somewhatbent]

In my part of the world (left coast of the US) with the sugar it's a scone, without the sugar it's a biscuit. Lard is the magic of tender crumb!

[fadedwings]

Weird. For me a scone usually has about 1/4 cup to a 1/2 cup of sugar. One of the recipes I based this on had only a tsp of sugar. I tried that and hated them. The other recipe had a 1/4 cup of sugar and I used that recipe for a long time. This one is in between and I like it best now.