every little thing: A Case for the Biscuit

I think everyone should make their own biscuits. It's just something I feel very strongly about. They are suitable anytime of day, you can fill them with almost anything, and everyone loves them. They just make you feel good inside; the perfect comfort food. So simple to make, you only need five ingredients that are nearly always on hand: flour, butter, milk, baking powder, and salt. Here is my favorite recipe, (adapted from Joy of Cooking) and a few no-fail tips that will have you baking biscuits to beat the band.

Country Mouse Biscuits

*Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 or 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup of milk

Whisk together all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) in a large bowl. Make sure they are nice and blended. Cut your *cold* butter into small pieces. Use a pastry blender to "cut" the butter into the flour mixture. Your not looking for perfection, just work the mixture until the individual butter pieces are no larger than a pea. Do not let the butter melt or get pasty. You want a dry, bread crumb texture.

Add the cold milk all at once. Mix until just barely moistened. (as seen here.) It will look like a big, old mess and nowhere near consistent. That's what you want! Now dump it all out onto your counter top.

Work the mixture together a little, kneading slightly just once or twice until it barely holds together, then pat with your fingers until it's all flat and about 3/4" thick. Yes, it will stick to your hands and table. Deal with it. Adding more flour will risk making the biscuits tough. You can shoot your hands with a little cooking spray to help with the stickiness. No need for a rolling pin. Trust me.

You can easily cut the biscuits with a biscuit cutter, any small glass right out of your cabinet, or even a cookie cutter. Whatever you use, try to press down and lift up evenly, without twisting. It really does help the biscuits rise evenly! You may need to nudge the biscuits off the counter with a metal spatula or scraper.

Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Try to cut as many biscuits as you can, and leave very little scrap. You can definitely smash up the leftover pieces and re-cut them...but they will not be quite as tender as the first-cut. The regular biscuits shown here were cut with the glass (seen above,) and the small ones were made with the mini biscuit cutter from the shop (and I'm really smitten with it, if you can't tell!)

At this point, you can brush the tops with melted butter or milk (but I never do, I'm too impatient.) Bake them for only 10-12 minutes until very, lightly browned. You don't want them too dark. Serve them immediately and wait for the collective sigh of contentment from your friends and family. I heartily reccomend slicing your biscuit and adding a squeeze of wildflower honey, it's my absolute favorite. Max insists upon cherry preserves with his biscuits. And Mike, well...he prefers a large hunk of sausage. Oh well, at least this is one case where you most certainly can make everyone happy.

*Final Thoughts*

*You can sub up to 1/2 cup of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. The biscuits may not rise quite as much, but they will still be amazingly good.

*You can use soy milk in place of the regular milk with no noticeable difference.

*Don't add any more baking powder than the recipe calls for, or it will make your biscuits slightly bitter. You don't want to taste the leavening.

*Don't expect these biscuits to taste or look like the ones from Cracker Barrel, or the ones you make out of a can. These are real, homemade, country biscuits. They are gonna take some getting used to, but once you're hooked, you'll never be able to go back. Mike is convinced that I make my own biscuits because I am so frightened of the canned ones that you have to peel the corner of the paper off, because they tend to *explode* in my hands and scare the bejeezus out of me. He may be right. But he's also not complaining. It's hard to complain with a fresh, hot biscuit in your mouth.

Comments

Ooh, yum! I'm even more impatient and always make drop biscuits. I just add a bit more milk.

Posted by: Tasha | March 12, 2009 at 07:00 AM

I have the same Strawberry jam jar!
I love ceramic fruit!

Posted by: jess | March 12, 2009 at 08:29 AM

I've always made biscuits this way, and pretty close to this recipe too. I think mine came from an ancient copy of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook that my mom has. One little trick I learned somewhere: the closer you put the biscuits on the pan, the higher they will rise. This is because the sides don't bake as quickly, so they can puff up more.

Posted by: Barbara | March 12, 2009 at 08:57 AM

I wish I had a biscuit right now. And yes, homemade biscuits are the best!

Posted by: amy | March 12, 2009 at 09:40 AM

i had a dream about biscuits last weekend and have been wanting one ever since...and here is a recipe. perfect. i am making these this weekend!

Posted by: liz elayne | March 12, 2009 at 11:33 AM

Amen. Homemade biscuits are pretty close to heaven on earth. I make them the same way my great-grandmother did growing up on her parents' farm. She was famous for them. And for good reason.

Your pictures have made me so hungry for biscuits...I think I know what we'll be doing this Saturday morning. :)

Posted by: cara | March 12, 2009 at 04:48 PM

What a motivating post. I'm off to make buttermilk biscuits for fried chicken tonight. Thanks!

Posted by: Lauren | March 12, 2009 at 06:43 PM

Mmmm... you have inspired a sunday breakfast. What's not to love about little round doughy goodness! I love the little guys!

Posted by: carrie | March 14, 2009 at 09:23 PM

I always thought I was spacing mine too far apart...thanks for the tip!

Posted by: Amanda Krueger | March 17, 2009 at 12:56 AM

Thank you so much! After reading this I felt enough courage to try making biscuits and for a first time they came out not too shabby at all! I look forward to trying the recipe a few more times and getting them perfect.

Posted by: Lorraine | March 22, 2009 at 10:36 PM

My whole family enjoyed this. I love when I am able to find good recipes and articles on line. I get most of mine on Wacanai.com ( http://www.wacanai.com/intro ). They have really great searching capabilities and a lot of good articles. People link their own page to wacania so you can find some other great sites too. You should think about posting this article on it, I think a lot of people would enjoy it.

Posted by: Steven Brown | April 17, 2009 at 06:26 AM