So, let's get two things straight here, just to start:
1. I've said it before: I am not a chef. I do not claim to be a chef, but I'm always working on getting better. I'm just a home cook.
2. I've said this before, too: These food posts on this blog are for my kids. It may sound like I'm explaining A LOT (and I am), but sometimes, you have to make yourself perfectly clear, so that no one can possibly misunderstand. Because someone will still misunderstand.
Moving on!!
Ah, biscuits. Some people have rose-tinted memories of tender baking powder biscuits that their sweet grandma made. For me, this is not something I remember from my childhood -- maybe because my mom had really backed off on baking by the time I came around. Or maybe because she just didn't have a good recipe for biscuits, either, and just stopped trying.
I've eaten good biscuits before -- but my own baking results weren't quite there. Biscuits have the potential for being a great substitute for yeast rolls, in much less time. My past results have wavered between "passable" and "hockey pucks". And even if these may not be perfected yet, I've tried a lot of recipes, and these are as near to that "perfect biscuit" as I've been able to come. And there are a whole lot of recipes out there for basic baking powder biscuits. Ask me how I know!!
I tried some recipes that claimed to be the "best biscuit ever". Note: they lie to you. Pinterest has no controls over wild claims by individuals.
I tried some that were put forth by famous people. Some famous people should stick to their day job.
And in case you were wondering, .... people seem to feel really strongly about biscuits, too. Weird!
I also tried "Frankensteining" biscuit recipes for the best qualities in each.
In the end, the ones I like the best actually came from my own cookbook, but with 3 personal adjustments to the recipe (so I feel like it's different enough from the original to not worry about claiming the source). Having said all that, we also need to establish that there really IS a LOT to be said for biscuit-making technique, too, so don't ever count on just a recipe as being the final word.
My top technique tips will sound a lot like other recipes:
1. Biscuits are a "quick bread", so don't overwork the dough. Just don't try to handle it too much.
2. COLD ingredients are also key. You'll see what I mean.
3. Put the rolling pin back in the drawer, and step away. You're not rolling out anything here.
Here's the list of ingredients:
SUPER-GOOD BISCUITS
1 stick butter, cold from the fridge(1/2 cup)
2 cups flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons milk
more flour for dusting
melted butter for brushing tops
Ok, so here we go!!
Start with the cold butter. I used to use shortening (again, from that base recipe), but I do think the butter is better. I take the cold stick of butter and pre-chop it into bits, touching it as little as possible.
(Sorry for the lighting in the pictures. Wacky camera. Later photo credits go to Emma, because with dough on my hands, there was no way I was going to touch the camera!)
So, the reason for not touching the butter goes back to keeping things cold. Even the heat from my fingertips can start to soften the edges of small butter bits. Here's the key: Cold butter, worked into layers with the flour = flakier biscuits. I'm talking about pockets of butter [fat] in the dough. And speaking of the flour, ...
This used to seem like an unnecessary step to me, like just the kind of stuff that TV chefs do. But I'm converted.
Dump all the dry ingredients into a separate bowl, and mix them together thoroughly. Like, a lot. More than you think you need to do. While it does eliminate lumps, what it really does is evenly incorporate the little stuff (salt, baking powder, cream of tartar, sugar) into the flour. I used to get biscuits with speckled-looking tops as they browned in the oven. Has that happened to you, too? Weird. Mix those dry ingredients. By themselves.
I just use my pastry blender to stir them around in the bowl.
Now. Wet ingredients.
I've tried using just straight milk. I don't keep buttermilk around, but I've tried the homemade substitute for it. Still, each time I've made biscuits, the sour cream ones have always been better. So, sour cream plus a little bit of milk (the 2 tablespoons) counts for wet ingredients in this recipe.
But not yet! First, cut the butter into the flour. I do it by hand with my pastry blender, and it doesn't take too long, because I've pre-cut the butter into bits. Some people apparently use a food processor. That's not worth the time/cleaning of those parts, to me. Some people grate the butter into the flour mixture. With a box grater. The kind you use for cheese. Weird. (And how do they keep it from melting in their hand??)
Pastry blender.
So, I missed a photo of that step, but trust me. It's blended. You still want to see visible little chunks of butter in there. About pea-sized. Then, make a well in the middle of the dry stuff, for the wet stuff to go in, and add the milk and sour cream -- both of which are also cold-from-the-fridge:
I usually start mixing by stirring some circles with a regular old spoon, and then change pretty quickly to using my hand.
See the old lady hand in the Claw shape? Seriously, that's how I do it. I keep my fingers open and I'm just trying to incorporate the dry stuff into the wet, cold stuff.
I end up with sticky dough all over my fingers.
Ewwww!!! OLD-LADY-HANDS!!!!
I really do have my mother's hands. When I look at my hands, I see my mom's hands.
Pretty sure no amount of hand lotion in the world would change that look.
Just scrape the sticky dough off with a rubber scraper, and keep going until ....
It all comes together in a ball in the bowl:
By the end of the "mixing" time, I'm just rolling the dough around the sides of the bowl, snowball-style, until it picks up most or all of the smaller chunks and dry stuff.
Look! You can see the yellow bits of butter in that.
Dust some flour on the counter, set the dough on it, and give the top of the dough a dusting of flour, too. See my super-old-but-still-functional-strainer-used-as-a-sifter?
Some recipes say to knead the dough. I think that's a misnomer. It's not really kneading, which is what I think of with yeast bread dough -- which is folding it over, driving the heel of the hands into it, turning a quarter turn, and repeat. That is not this. For me, it's not even folding it over, either.
I press, (no rolling pin), flattening evenly, and shape the dough as I go, into a general rectangle, about an inch thick:
Some recipes do say to "fold" the dough. I found it's more effective to slice and stack.
With a butter knife, cut the flattened rectangle into thirds, and then stack them on top of each other. There should be enough flour here so that it's not sticking to your hands, but don't overdo the flour.
Ooooh --- nice little butter bits!
Now flatten that stack of dough into that same rough rectangle.
I'm pretty sure those hands don't look like that in real life.
So, slice and stack - this is now the third time stacking:
Depending on my time, I often try to slice and stack ONE more time after that, and THEN ....
On the LAST step of slicing and stacking, instead of slicing into thirds, slice it in halves:
The reason I do only halves on the last run-through, is because when I do it that way, the biscuits will easily pull apart right in the middle, ready for buttering while they're nice and hot.
So, then flatten for the final time....
And then cut with a biscuit cutter.
Make each cut straight down, and pull straight back up -- don't twist the cutter.
I like this cutter that is pretty deep and pretty open on the top. My old tin cutter (which was mom's) was deeper for biscuits, but also enclosed on the top, which limited how thick the dough could be.
The dough here should be about an inch-ish thick.
This is a 2 1/4" biscuit cutter, and I wouldn't go bigger in diameter than that -- to be sure that the biscuits cook through in the center.
I also keep my cuts VERY close to each other, even to the point that if you look carefully, some of these biscuits have a tiny nick out of the circle. It doesn't show in the finished biscuits.
After experimenting some with kinds of baking pans and biscuit layout in the pans, I've finally decided on a glass baking dish, and I space the biscuits out so they are not touching each other, but just barely apart from one another.
To get the most rise on these babies, I think they need someone to lean on, to help them grow to their full potential. As they bake, expand, and rise -- they use the sides of the glass dish for support, and they also end up baking into each other, which gives them additional support for rising. (The dish here has slightly sloping sides -- a straight sided dish would have been better.)
I've seen some recipes that crowd the biscuits into a pan, touching sides all over the place. I'm not a fan of that method. In theory, yes, ... they have biscuits next to them to help them rise. But then they also become once solid mass of dough, and getting cooked through to the middle is a lot harder to do.
And they end up squarer -- which is ok, if that's what you're going for.
But then when you brush them with butter, it has a tendency to make them mushy. And while I love soft biscuits -- mushy ones are not that appetizing.
After the initial cutting of biscuits, I meld the remaining dough together, with cut edges meeting, and minimizing adding flour. Fold the dough over once and make the second cutting of biscuits, and then with the final dough scraps, I smoosh a biscuit together -- these last ones will not be as good as the first ones. The smooshed biscuit (in the middle) is really just a "taster biscuit" for the cook, anyway. Right???
I've also experimented with putting more baking powder in the recipe, to make them rise more. Supposedly, some people can taste the baking powder -- a chemical, metallicky taste. I don't really taste that, but if there's too much baking powder, they can't stay balanced when they rise.
They kind of look like those "black snakes" you can buy at Fourth of July fireworks stands. They start to rise, and then they flop over to one side. So, I backed off on the baking powder, and that happens much, much less now.
All that space around the biscuits allows for slightly crispy sides, and makes sure they cook through in the center. All that melted butter brushed on top keeps them from being too crispy!
You can still see the butter bits. This is a good thing!
Now they're ready for the hot oven.
You pre-heated, right? Ok, good.
(Pre-heating an oven was never something my mom did. In her frugal mind, it was a waste of gas (ours was a gas cookstove). I'm more lax than that, and pre-heating for baking is the way to go!
So, a 450-degree oven for 10-12 minutes.
At least, that's what the recipe says.
In the mean time, assemble the appropriate biscuit accessorizing pieces:
Of course, more butter, for spreading. Homemade Raspberry Jam. And fresh honey from your-friend-the-beekeeper.
Then, check the oven:
Those (above photo) are NOT done.
With the "10-12 minutes" time given in the recipe, I still ended up baking mine for 15 minutes. Trust the color, and don't be afraid of some golden brown happening here.
These are done:
And brushed with more melted butter.
(So, yes -- brush with butter before AND after baking the biscuits.)
And here's an eternal truth for you:
Biscuits will always, always, always be best when they are freshly baked and HOT out of the oven.
This is why my fingers are so very red in this photo:
Because that's burning my hand!!
Ouch!
I tried for a split-biscuit shot so you could see the flakiness:
That one was still super-hot, too.
So, don't stop to take pictures. Just eat immediately!! Top with your favorites -- Emma prefers straight butter. I have more recently become a fan of jam on my biscuits:
Or, go classic, and put some of that fresh, local, homegrown honey on top:
Mmmmmm!!!!
And there you have it. Biscuits that I finally feel like I can serve to guests without apologizing.
Testing out variants was a tough job, but someone had to take one for the team.
Or in this case --- dozens!
Speaking of dozens -- this recipe makes about 1 dozen biscuits.
You should try some now. Seriously.
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