A few days ago I made some really bad corn bread.
So I asked and you commented and Cristal mentioned BISCUITS.
I love biscuits. My mom used to make them for us for breakfast almost every day.
So... who has a good recipe? Who uses the ones in the twisty can?
2 comments:
Buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients: (Without baking powder/soda - my preference)
1 ¾ to 2 cups of self-rising bleached flour (less gluten) http://www.whitelily.com/Products/Details.aspx?groupID=93&prodID=787
2 teaspoons granulated sugar or honey
¼ teaspoon fine grain (sea) salt
4 T Crisco (Natural) Oil (or 1 stick unsalted chilled butter, cut in 16 pieces)
1 cup buttermilk, chilled
Ingredients: (With baking powder/soda)
1 ¾ to 2 cups of bleached all-purpose flour
¼ - ⅓ cup cake flour like Softasilk
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
*2 tablespoons butter
*2 tablespoons shortening
*ALT – Crisco oil – approx 4 tablespoons
1 cup buttermilk, chilled
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large (chilled) mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
*Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs.
*Alternate version – my mama used no butter/shortening, instead see parenthesis info below.
After mixing dry ingredients, make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the chilled buttermilk. *(Then pour the oil into the middle of the buttermilk – don’t pour so much that it touches the edges. This is used instead of butter/shortening). Stir gently just until the dough comes together – it only takes a couple of stirs. The dough will be very sticky. Don’t over work – it will make dense, tough biscuits. This way you get light fluffy biscuits.
Turn dough onto floured surface (we just used to sprinkle flour on the linoleum counter), dust top with flour and gently roll with wooden rolling pin, lightly pressing it down. It dough is too wet, add flour and fold dough over on itself a couple of times. If too dry add a dollop more of buttermilk. I roll it out like a pie crust – from the center out, and don’t press too hard. You want it to be close to a 1/2 inch or so thick. Cut out biscuits with a water glass (about smaller than a coffee mug, larger than a juice glass). Push straight down on the dough, don’t twist it – that toughens it too. Add a dollop of oil to your pre-seasoned cast iron skillet that you’ve pre-warmed in your pre-heated oven. Place biscuits in the skillet so that they just touch.
You can re-form the leftovers for the rest of the biscuits, work it as little as possible and continue cutting. Always make sure to leave some of the cut-outs for the kids to munch the raw dough.
Bake until biscuits double in size and are light brown on top, 15 to 20 minutes. We also turn the broiler on a bit and brown the tops after brushing with butter. You can press the top with your finger tip if it rises back out they're done.
Best served hot, but reheat ok (in a toaster oven). Great with honey (you can add honey to the dough or sugar – to your preference). We like them hot out of the oven with a pat of butter, with sausage gravy ladled over the top of split biscuits, with a thick slice of cheddar cheese melted between it and if we have leftovers, add a slice of roast beef (aka roast beast) or ham. They’re great with fried chicken or roast beef with gravy. Another favorite is to jelly/jam them – fireweed jelly (fuschia colored) is especially dramatic and the delicate taste works well with the biscuits.
After a while you get a feel for it and you don’t even measure it. And the more you make them the faster, lighter, fluffier they seem to be.
I have a great biscuit recipe. Actually, it's the one we used to make on Saturday mornings in college . . . the year that you lived in the upper level with Little Pink Nose and Little Black Nose. I'll post it, just in case you need a refresher. And, of course, to digitize the damn thing so that we can find it easily later.
Post a Comment