I love cheese biscuits. Looks like it will be at least several weeks before I can make 'em though.
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This is my paternal grandmother's recipe, which she taught to my mom, and my brothers & I all learned to bake as kids. They were a staple in our family.
For us it was always fluffy drop biscuits with lumpy surface where they were perfect when some of the points & bumps were turning dark brown. Later as an adult, I committed the heresy of sometimes using the stretch & fold flaky method, for which I was run out of the Midwest and had to move to California.
I rarely bake them these days as I gravitate much more to meat & veggies and less grains, but still enjoy them occasionally.
Baking Powder Biscuits
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar (optional - I prefer without)
1/3 cup oil/butter/lard
2/3 cup milk
Prep
For fluffy biscuits, do minimum mixing and kneading and drop in 6-8 lumps on greased pan.
For flaky biscuits, fold shortening into the flour before adding milk. After milk is added, press dough on floured surface. Fold. Repeat a bunch of times. Cut with 2-inch cutter and place on lightly greased pan.
Bake
425 F
Check after 12 minutes, but may take 15-20Comment
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i love the america's test kitchen buttermilk biscuits recipe, i dislike that it doesn't use weighted measurements but here it is:
3 cups of AP flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks of butter frozen then grated on a box grater
1 1/4 cups of cold buttermilk
mix all of that together until a shaggy dough forms, then put it onto a well-floured work surface. using a bench scraper form into a roughly 7 inch square, roll it out to a 9x12 rectangle and fold it letter style, turn in 90 degrees and roll out to 9x12 again. Repeat this process for a total of 5 roll\folds. after the 5th on roll out to an 8x8 transfer to a baking sheet and refrigerate or freeze for about 30 minutes. cut the biscuits and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. they suggest cutting in squares but I usually use traditional round biscuit cutters, but the time I did do the square method they suggest it did get better rise out of the layers.
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Sam6687, I agree with the weighted measurements comment. It drives me nuts, to be honest, as baking is very much a science and precision rules the day (that's why, for example, Pillsbury commercial products are so consistent). I weigh whatever I can, including the fat (butter/lard). Thanks for sharing your experience.
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Biscuits are hit and miss with me (same with drop dumplings for that matter). If I over think it, I jack it up.
What I want is a smaller yield recipe. We are only a party of two.
now I want a biscuit. With sausage gravy. And a scrambled egg. Dang it.Comment
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Here ya go:
1 C White Lily self rising flour
1/4 C cold unsalted butter
3/8 C cold cultured non fat buttermilk
1 T melted butter
But I really suggest making the full recipe. Then you can either bake them all off and freeze the leftovers, or bake what you want and freeze the remainder unbaked.
To reheat baked biscuits, gently thaw in the microwave and heat in a medium hot oven for two minutes or so.Last edited by RonB; August 5, 2022, 07:20 AM.
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I'm surprised nobody mentioned cream biscuits.Comment
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I have a never fail process
I will say I was never one for biscuits until I had one at a brunch spot in Chattanooga, and southern folks are right, Yankees don’t know from good biscuits. Our flour has too much protein. Better to use cake flour in the north.Comment
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Great point, Potkettleblack. I learned about the differences in flour from Japanese cooking, oddly enough, where they call it 'strong' flour (= high protein) or 'weak' flour (= low protein).
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Slight rabbit trail, but I just want to share some good things that came out of this thread. My older son turned 22 today - we're past the point of making a big fuss, but his brother & I took him out for lunch. In conversation, with this thread as a recent reminder, I mentioned that the biscuits I make are from my Grandma's recipe. He asked for the recipe so he can learn to make them, too. (He never had much interest in cooking until recently, now he's really getting into it.)
Which led to a conversation about my memories of my Grandma. Her husband died in 1946 (of strep throat) and she never remarried. She raised 9 kids and managed the farm herself. Into her 70s she lived alone, still raised chickens and sheep, had a garden over 1/3 acre, and still cooked fresh meals every day. With dozens of grandkids and other extended family and friends, she was always ready for whoever showed up unannounced. And it didn't matter when we popped in, there was always something fresh coming out of the oven - cookies, cobbler, biscuits, salt-rising bread, pie, rolls, whatever.
The only time that ever went wrong was when I grabbed a slice of what I thought was pecan pie. Just as I took a huge bite, I heard, "Oh, I see you found the mincemeat pie." Talk about unfulfilled expectations!
This site is a catalyst for many good things, and this is one more example.Comment
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My grandmother used to make what Jerry Clower called ‘stump whupped’ biscuits. I.e., they were irregular in shape and size because they were pinched from the dough ball, rolled in her hands, then pressed onto the baking sheet. She would put the flour, salt, lard and milk in a bowl then work it all together leaving whatever flour wasn’t needed on the sides of the bowl. It was magical. As kids, we would come up with all kinds of ways to get molasses, honey, butter or jam into the center with cutting them in half. The favorite method was to take a knife and ‘drill’ a hole in the side into which our ingredient of choice would poured in.Comment
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I decided to make @DavidNorcross ' MIL's biscuits today. The main goal for me is to find a recipe I can make and freeze, to bake later. I followed the instructions, with the following differences:- Accidentally added 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda instead of 1/4
- Subbed lard for the Crisco or Butter (about 77 grams)
- Used just 1 cup of buttermilk
- Baked a few misshapened biscuits in the air fryer @400 F, 13 minutes
- Froze the rest (3" circle cutter for me, gcdmd, but you can size as you like)
Here are the results (minus one I ate):
Air fryer is supposed to be okay for baking, but the temp was too high. I actually flipped them before they burned. I've never baked in an air fryer, but didn't want to get the oven going just to bake a few biscuits.
They tasted like, well, buttermilk biscuits. Very good flavor, even with the extra soda. They did not rise as much as I expected, but that is likely user error on my part, or the air fryer's fault. The dark browning on top is from the buttermilk I spread on and from the biscuits being exposed to the air fryer element. I usually use a butter spread on top, so maybe I'll give that a try.
Next test: bake from frozen. Maybe tomorrow.
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The recipe I posted to start this topic freezes well after baking. What I do is defrost gently in the microwave, then ~ 2 min in a medium hot toaster oven, (I think the air fryer would work great), and done. Using an oven or airfryer is not necessary, but it improves the texture of the crust a bit.
And baking all at once is easier for me. -
Thanks RonB, and thanks for sharing. Those are beautiful biscuits and I will have to give it a try. The main goal is to be able to get a breakfast sandwich in my kids' hands quickly in the morning before I shuttle them off to school. I will try your recipe next and see how it goes.
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