Biscuits

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Biscuits







[SIZE=23.55px]Preheat the oven to 450°F[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Ingredients[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]2 cups (270 grams) all-purpose flour[/SIZE]
[SIZE=23.55px]4 teaspoons baking powder[/SIZE]
[SIZE=23.55px]3/4 teaspoon salt[/SIZE]
[SIZE=23.55px]8 tablespoons (115 grams) unsalted butter, slightly softened[/SIZE]
[SIZE=23.55px]2/3 cup (160 ml) cold milk[/SIZE]
[SIZE=23.55px]Extra flour for work surface[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]To measure the flour, stir the flour to lighten it before spooning it up & placing in the measuring cup. Fill to the top/mounded then, using a long flat surface like the back of a knife blade, level the flour across the top of the cup. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Place the flour in a large bowl. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Add the baking powder and salt to the flour and stir to blend.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Cut the butter into cubes and to the flour in the bowl then toss to cover the butter cubes in the flour. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Using your fingertips, rub the butter and flour together rather vigorously until the butter has been completely incorporated into the flour and the mixture resembles damp sand or cornmeal. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Add the milk, about a third at a time, mixing vigorously into the flour with a fork until the dough forms into a rough ball & there is no more dry flour/butter mixture.[/SIZE]



[SIZE=23.55px]Gather the dough together and and place on a floured work surface, dusting the dough itself with a little flour. Knead the dough very, very briefly only until you have a homogenous and smooth dough. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Using a rolling pin and a very light touch (roll the dough without pressing down on the rolling pin into the dough), roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/2-inch (1 cm). The dough should be light and fluffy, not packed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Using a round biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out small rounds (press straight down then up, not twisting the cutter) and place on an ungreased cookie or baking sheet.[/SIZE]



[SIZE=23.55px]Place the cookie/baking sheets with the biscuits in the preheated oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]The biscuits will have risen, the layers slightly separating, and the tops and the bottoms (carefully lift one up and look) will be a nice golden brown.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=23.55px]Eat hot or warm with butter. [/SIZE]

 

[Taku]

Thanks! In between working on a set of wood oars, I can work on these.

 

[ski3pin]

Going in the oven now.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I bet they look a bit like this...

 

[ski3pin]

How'd you get in our oven?

I had three helpings. The Lady's first biscuits from scratch.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I snapped the shot while you were walking with The Lady

 

[Advmoto18]

Oh my those look GOOD!!!
I will give your recipe a try Steve!

A biscuit recipe I received for an old school, now deceased, South Carolina, southern lady who could cook southern fired chicken and biscuits like no other.


2 cups flour (she insisted on White Lilly or wouldn't make biscuits)
first 4 ingredients sifted together several times
2T unsalted butter
2T Crisco shortening (if you want to go true souther like Bojangles biscuits, use lard)
3/4C cold buttermilk (do not use fat free or low fat) you might need and extra tablespoon or 2 as you work the fat into the flour. But start with 3/4C.

To keep from overworking the flour mixture, rub the butter and Crisco into the dry ingredients using only your fingertips (she insisted upon this technique) until you have lumpy crumbs. Be gentle and work quickly so body temp doesn't melt the fat.

The mass will be very sticky. Put out on a floured surface, gently flatten and fold over onto it itself. Repeat 3 or 4 times. Gently press down until you have a 1" round. I use a 1.5" and sometimes a 2" cutter. Place biscuits on parchment lined cookie sheet so they just barely touch (important to get the fluffy rise).

Take scrap dough and and make another 1" thick round. Cut and place these biscuits, just touching on a separate area of the cookie sheet. They will end up a little tougher and not as fluffy because the dough were overworked a bit to get the second round.

Put sheet in preheated 450F oven for 15 minutes. Add more time if you like a deeper golden brown, but closely watch to ensure they don't burn.

Serve with softened butter and raw, local honey.

 

[Vic Harder]

I had three helpings. The Lady's first biscuits from scratch.

Coincidentally, my wife was making biscuits and ham & bean soup for dinner today. I didn't know there was another way to make biscuits beside "from scratch". Lucky man, I guess!

 

[Mthomas]

Oh my those look GOOD!!!
I will give your recipe a try Steve!

A biscuit recipe I received for an old school, now deceased, South Carolina, southern lady who could cook southern fired chicken and biscuits like no other.


2 cups flour (she insisted on White Lilly or wouldn't make biscuits)
first 4 ingredients sifted together several times
2T unsalted butter
2T Crisco shortening (if you want to go true souther like Bojangles biscuits, use lard)
3/4C cold buttermilk (do not use fat free or low fat) you might need and extra tablespoon or 2 as you work the fat into the flour. But start with 3/4C.

To keep from overworking the flour mixture, rub the butter and Crisco into the dry ingredients using only your fingertips (she insisted upon this technique) until you have lumpy crumbs. Be gentle and work quickly so body temp doesn't melt the fat.

The mass will be very sticky. Put out on a floured surface, gently flatten and fold over onto it itself. Repeat 3 or 4 times. Gently press down until you have a 1" round. I use a 1.5" and sometimes a 2" cutter. Place biscuits on parchment lined cookie sheet so they just barely touch (important to get the fluffy rise).

Take scrap dough and and make another 1" thick round. Cut and place these biscuits, just touching on a separate area of the cookie sheet. They will end up a little tougher and not as fluffy because the dough were overworked a bit to get the second round.

Put sheet in preheated 450F oven for 15 minutes. Add more time if you like a deeper golden brown, but closely watch to ensure they don't burn.

Serve with softened butter and raw, local honey.

Your missing three of the first four ingredients

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

There’s funny culinary tradition in the Sagebrush family. During the depression, my grandparents would invite machinists that worked with and for my grandfather to frequent family meals. My grandmother would always have everyone’s favorite, biscuits from scratch, maybe sausage gravy as well. After cutting out the standard round shapes, she would take all of the remaining scraps, press them into a large ball, flatten and bake it with the others.

One of the men, Bill Nelson by name, would always ask for that particular biscuit. It didn’t take long for it to receive the name of the “Bill Nelson Biscuit”.

That was in the 1930s. Nearly ninety years and four generations later, we still call that big misshapen biscuit the Bill Nelson. When ever biscuits are served at our house, you better be quick with your request. There’s serious competition for the Bill Nelson Biscuit.

 

[Stokeme]

Shirley Corriher's Country Buttermilk Biscuits
Makes 12 to 18

Shirley Corriher is a very talented Southern cooking teacher and cookbook author who specializes in knowing why food works the way it does. Her grandmother, Nanny, taught her to use a big wooden biscuit bowl to turn out these feathery and delicate biscuits, but she's adapted it to modern measures and equipment.

2½ cups self-rising flour (if self-rising flour is not available, combine 1 cup all-purpose flour, teaspoon salt, and 1½ teaspoons baking powder)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons shortening
7/8 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 450F.
Spray and 8-inch round cake pan with nonstick spray.
Combine 1½ cups flour, the soda, salt, and sugar. With your fingers or a pastry cutter, work the shortening into the flour mixture until there are no shortening lumps larger than a small pea.
Stir in the buttermilk and let the dough stand 2 or 3 minutes. It will be very wet. This dough is so wet that you cannot shape it in the usual manner. Pour the remaining cup of flour onto a plate or pie pan. Flour your hands well. Spoon or scoop with a small ice cream scoop a biscuit-sized lump of wet dough into the flour and sprinkle some flour on top. With your hands, shape the biscuit into a soft round, gently shaking off any excess flour. The dough is so soft that it will not hold its shape. As you shape each biscuit, place it into an 8-inch round cake pan, pushing the biscuits tightly against each other so that they will rise up rather than spread out. Continue shaping the biscuits in this manner using all the dough.
Brush the biscuits with the melted butter and place on the oven shelf just above the center. Increase the oven temperature to 475F. and bake 15 to 18 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool a minute or two in the pan.

Note .... read entire recipe before mixing together anything. Self-rising flour is available at most stores (or King Arthur Flour online) usually but not so much at the present time. It should be a wet, sticky type dough which leads to a very light & flavorful biscuit. I have only made this recipe with self-rising flour. Depending on your oven temp, you may not want to increase to 475F as listed. Copied from Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Biscuits.