I aim to post twice a week — once with a recipe or a book review, and once with a post about something delicious. I hope to generate some conversations, ideas and exchanges of fun cooking tips here, so please feel free to comment, add your own take, or what have you. Or just lurk if that is your thing on sites like this.
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Here’s the first one.
Biscuits. I love them. Been baking them for decades, and they have gotten better over the years.
Basic biscuits are pretty great, and pretty easy. Every biscuit maker has opinions and trick they use to make their perfect biscuits. All of them are excellent and correct. Mine is perfect for me. Your mileage may vary, but here goes.
Two rules that I always follow. One, WHITE LILY flour, or a similar soft winter wheat, self-rising flour. Accept no substitutes, if you want tender, gorgeous little things. Two, I never roll the dough out: I pat it out gently and with love, and double or triple it to get lots of layers — every time I just pat it out again.
Set the oven to 450 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or use a silicone mat.
Mix two cups of White Lily and one teaspoon of salt in a big bowl to combine. Cut up 4 tablespoons of cold, cold butter and toss them in, then cut them in with forks or a pastry cutter. We’re looking for pea-sized butter bits.
Now add 1 cup of cold, cold buttermilk to the bowl. You can use regular milk, or cream, or try it with a non-dairy replacement (not sure how they will react, so AYOR!). stir together til you have a ragged dough starting to come together.
Turn that out onto a very lightly flours surface, and gently bring everything together. The second it is all together in a soft dough, pat it out gently to the desired thickness (I like about a half-inch), and then I fold it over and pat it again, and if I am feeling sprightly, I will fold it again.
Let this rest for a minute while you melt two tablespoons of butter. Once it is melted, take it off heat and reserve.
Flour your cutter (whatever size you like) and cut out the biscuits, using as much of the dough as you can. I cut them really close together. I turn the cut biscuits upside down on the baking sheet, an inch or so apart. Then I pat out the leftovers and cut that too, until I have used it all up, or nearly so. I usually have little scraps I mush together into a tiny Frankenstein biscuit that I eat straight out of the oven as my tester, and as my prize for making these biscuits.
If the biscuits are biggish, you will get about eight, but the number depends totally on your thickness and the size of your cutter. You an also skip the cutter and use a big knife to cut the dough into nice pretty squares — you use up all the dough in one go with this method.
Brush the biscuit tops with half your melted butter, and shove the baking sheet in the oven, cooking for 13-18 minutes you know how your oven runs, adjust based on how yours cooks.
When they are golden brown