Biscuits

[DanCole42]

Since good biscuits come from very fickle preparation... how much would it hurt to make a biscuit dough the night before and then cook it the following morning... PROVIDED that the dough was kept cold?

Would it be preferable to cut them out in the morning or the night before?

[Anna Blume]

Cut them out, freeze them on a tray (separated) and pop them in the hot oven as is.

I've done this as per instructions from Dorie Greenspan and they were fine. Heather's the real expert here, though.

[DanCole42]

Cut them out, freeze them on a tray (separated) and pop them in the hot oven as is.

I've done this as per instructions from Dorie Greenspan and they were fine. Heather's the real expert here, though.

What sort of heat/time allowance should I make for going from frozen=>cooked instead of room temp=>cooked?

Thanks!

[Heather]

You can freeze them on a tray, as AB says, but they won't pop the way they do if the dough is fresh.

This is one of mine.

[Anna Blume]

That picture, Heather, is the reason for my deference.

[Heather]

I've decided, after my last two batches, that I like the all-purpose flour better than White Lily. It gives a better rise, and better texture. WL biscuits are more tender, all-purpose more flaky, and I fall on the flaky side. (No jokes, please ) And the ratio of 5 T butter, 3 T shortening (or lard) is ideal.

I'll post some x-treme biscuit p0rn later this morning.

[smokey]

I'm tagging this on here, because I think it's fundamentally the most useful here. Anybody know a local source (not internet-based) for White Lily flour in MoCo? I'm thinking about trying the new Harris Teeter up Darnestown way (rte. 28?), but if would prefer a sure bet over a long drive that may leave me empty-handed.

Answering my own question--YES, the harris Tetter in Darnestown does carry White Lily flour!

[Heather]

The Wash Post food section weighs in on biscuits. Just ignore the part that talks about drop biscuits.

[Heather]

Ok, in an effort to acquaint myself with various recipes and techniques for biscuits, I've now read thoroughly through this thread (ththththth). And, I've noticed one glaring absence--Heather's biscuit recipe. Heather, I can only assume that is a purposeful omission on your part? Any chance you're willing to part with it?

While reading through this thread I realized that I never posted my recipe. Here 'tis:

3 C. flour (White Lily, or bleached AP)

3/4 t. salt

1 T. baking powder (make sure it's fresh)

3/4 t. baking soda

5 T. butter, diced & chilled

5 T. lard (or Crisco if you don't have good lard), diced and chilled

1 C. or more of good buttermilk (I use Trickling Springs)

Preheat oven to 450. Mix dry ingredients, cut in fat with a pastry cutter, or five pulses in a food processor. Turn out onto a large bowl and add enough buttermilk to make a very wet dough. Flour the top, turn out onto a floured board, and use floured hands to give it several folds, sprinkling with a little flour between folds. Cut out and set on a baking sheet. Bake in the middle of the oven for 12-15 mins, check after 12 to make sure they don't get too brown. If you making biscuits for shortbread, add a little sugar to the dry ingredients, and brush to the top with milk and sprinkle with sugar before baking.

You should get something that looks like this. If you don't have the right flour, regular AP will produce an acceptable result, just don't handle it too much.

[cheezepowder]

In today's Wash Post's Free Range food chat, someone asked about angel biscuits made with yeast. Has anyone tried these before? They sound interesting. Here's the description (the Wash Post also provided a recipe for Marcy Goldman's Flaky Angel Biscuits in the chat.)

Jane Touzalin: Angel biscuits are lighter and airier than regular biscuits; they're also delicious. The yeast makes them a little more labor-intensive. Typically, angel biscuit recipes produce a large quantity of dough that then is refrigerated, and for several days you just pinch off as much as you need to make a batch of biscuits whenever you want. Great stuff!

[zoramargolis]

In today's Wash Post's Free Range food chat, someone asked about angel biscuits made with yeast. Has anyone tried these before? They sound interesting. Here's the description (the Wash Post also provided a recipe for Marcy Goldman's Flaky Angel Biscuits in the chat.)

The other day, I made biscuits with a Paula Deen recipe that uses yeast and baking powder and baking soda and buttermilk. It didn't call for a rise prior to baking, but the biscuits were very light and had a wonderful yeasty aroma. They were a big hit. I saw her make them on tv, and then got the recipe off of the FoodTV website. I used a combination of butter and lard instead of shortening.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_33506,00.html

[porcupine]

In today's Wash Post's Free Range food chat, someone asked about angel biscuits made with yeast.

GAH!

[Heather]

It seems like a good morning for this:

I have to agree with Porcupine on "Angel biscuits." Those are dinner rolls.

[DanCole42]

It seems like a good morning for this:

I have to agree with Porcupine on "Angel biscuits." Those are dinner rolls.

Mmmmm... biscuit porn...

Do we have a recipe for these?

[Heather]

Mmmmm... biscuit porn...

Do we have a recipe for these?

Scroll up.

[DanCole42]

Scroll up.

I never learned to read!

What would be the effect of using rendered bacon fat in place of lard?

[zoramargolis]

What would be the effect of using rendered bacon fat in place of lard?

Ummm...bacon flavor perhaps?

[mdt]

Ummm...bacon flavor perhaps?

You mean this wasn't a trick question?

[mktye]

I'm free the last weekend in January and the first three in February. Sat or Sun, early or late, matters not to me.

I'm willing to make puff pastry and brioche in several batches, so people can work with them at different stages in their development, but some dough will be ready to bake so we'll have final product, too. And hopefully The Amazing Ms Tye will do a yeast bread for us? And Heather, biscuits? And heck, if we can get Zora to come out, I could finally learn to make tortillas.

My kitchen has two ovens and a 4'x6' center island, with outlets, which twelve people can squeeze around together. Willing to host up to 20. If a few people brought some non-starchy, easy to heat dishes, we'd have one heckuva dinner after all the baking's done.

I'm going to set up a temporary email alias so we don't have to communicate through pm. Send mail to flourfight@IdRatherNotSay.com. But if this alias gets into the public domain and I start getting penis enlargement spam I'll kill it immediately. [Rocks, don't even think about it! ]

I've moved this to its own thread here and after the planning is completed, another thread on this subject (with the final details) will be started in Events and Gatherings.

[eatWashington]

I'm a Brit. What you call Biscuits, I call Scones (pronounced 'sk-on'). They shouldn't be those lumps of raisin-studded dough you could break a window with. A proper English scone should be light and fluffy, eaten warm from the oven, preferably with real clotted cream (there's a recipe to make your own on eatWashington) and home-made raspberry jam. But pretty wonderful with butter and jam. You won't recognize them.

8 ounces self-raising flour, plus more for dusting

1 1/2 ounces butter, soft

1/4 pint milk

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 425F.

In a mixing bowl quickly rub the softened butter into the flour using only your fingertips. With the blade of a knife, stir in the sugar and salt, then little by little, while continuing to stir, slowly add the milk.

When it's all absorbed bring the dough quickly together with your hands and put it on a floured surface.

Roll it out to 1 inch thick, then punch out circles with a white wine glass or a 2 inch cookie cutter. Give them a tap to get them out and onto a greased baking sheet. If you twist the cutter, they'll stretch out of shape.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. Cool them on a wire rack only until tepid enough to handle, then eat at once.

Happy high tea!

eatwashington

[cheezepowder]

In today's Wash Post's Free Range food chat, someone asked about angel biscuits made with yeast.

I finally tried this recipe, except I used all butter instead of part shortening. They're good, buttery, and yeah, they taste like rolls, not so much biscuits. I made the dough on Sunday, and supposedly it will keep 2 weeks in the fridge. It's convenient having fresh dough in the fridge. In addition to plain dinner rolls, I rolled some up with shredded Dubliner cheese and truffle salt into crescents before baking. I'm not sure if the truffle salt weakens in the oven. I added more after baking too.

[Pat]

I finally tried this recipe, except I used all butter instead of part shortening. They're good, buttery, and yeah, they taste like rolls, not so much biscuits. I made the dough on Sunday, and supposedly it will keep 2 weeks in the fridge. It's convenient having fresh dough in the fridge. In addition to plain dinner rolls, I rolled some up with shredded Dubliner cheese and truffle salt into crescents before baking. I'm not sure if the truffle salt weakens in the oven. I added more after baking too.

I've mentioned this several times in the dinner thread, but I'll repeat here. This is quite a versatile dough, even if it's not a classic biscuit dough. What I've made with it over the course of a week:

pigs in blankets, twice--one appetizer size and one full size, effectively building a roll around the hot dog*

biscuit buns for hamburgers, a couple eaten as plain biscuits.

naan

It was great in all of these applications

*My husband does not much care for standard hotdog or hamburger buns, so I serve them pretty rarely. He was pleased with rolls made for both using this recipe. He especially liked the flavor and texture of the dough for the ready-made hotdog bun.

[legant]

Basically it's only kneeded enough to make sure everything has come together. It's easy to kneed too much and then you're eating rocks.

Lesson learned... the hard way!

Made cream biscuits last night. Good, but not great. I want biscuits that taste like I imagine when I see Heather's biscuit porn. I'm heading to the store for the buttermilk.

[porcupine]

Yesterday's homemade yogurt was strained through a fine-mesh sieve rather than cheesecloth, with the result that more fine-textured curd got into the whey, which as a result looked a heck of a lot like buttermilk. Smelled and tasted like buttermilk, too. So of course I saved it and used it in place of buttermilk to make biscuits.

Despite resemblences to buttermilk, it clearly wasn't as acidic (tested with some baking soda). The biscuits didn't rise as well, and didn't taste as good (nothing tastes as good as buttermilk biscuits), but they had an incredibly fine and tender crumb.

Though I'm unconvinced about Bakewell, it might do the trick in this application. More experiments are in order. Sub-standard biscuits are better than no biscuits.