Blog: BiscuitsBiscuits
My grandmother once told me that her mother made the most delicious biscuits, but that no one ever asked her how it was done until it was too late. My grandmother regretted her lack of biscuit know-how for the rest of her life.
Today I made biscuits. I come from a house where all of the biscuits I can recall were of the Pillsbury variety. My perfect biscuit heritage is 4 generations away, after all. I have attempted to make biscuits from scratch on a few occasions. I've never been terribly fond of them. (I wasn't terribly fond of the from refrigerated dough version either.) But today there were a few in the batch that I really, really enjoyed. They were the ones that Alena and Reasor made from the scraps. For some reason I was under the impression that you don't want to play too much with biscuit dough so I rolled it out, cut a dozen and then the the kids play with the rest and a couple of cookie cutters. They made about 6 more from what was left. They were lumpy and I worried they were too thick, but I just baked them anyway. When they all came out of the oven it was fairly obvious that I had rolled mine too thin, but the difference between mine and theirs was more than that. Theirs were flakier, mine were heavier, theirs were more delicious. And now you're waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one. I want input on this. Was I wrong about whether on not one should handle biscuit dough too much? Was it just the thickness? (It wasn't. I'm almost positive it was more than that.) Was it the love and joy the children put into theirs? How can I recreate their delicious biscuits?
Today I made biscuits. I come from a house where all of the biscuits I can recall were of the Pillsbury variety. My perfect biscuit heritage is 4 generations away, after all. I have attempted to make biscuits from scratch on a few occasions. I've never been terribly fond of them. (I wasn't terribly fond of the from refrigerated dough version either.) But today there were a few in the batch that I really, really enjoyed. They were the ones that Alena and Reasor made from the scraps. For some reason I was under the impression that you don't want to play too much with biscuit dough so I rolled it out, cut a dozen and then the the kids play with the rest and a couple of cookie cutters. They made about 6 more from what was left. They were lumpy and I worried they were too thick, but I just baked them anyway. When they all came out of the oven it was fairly obvious that I had rolled mine too thin, but the difference between mine and theirs was more than that. Theirs were flakier, mine were heavier, theirs were more delicious. And now you're waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one. I want input on this. Was I wrong about whether on not one should handle biscuit dough too much? Was it just the thickness? (It wasn't. I'm almost positive it was more than that.) Was it the love and joy the children put into theirs? How can I recreate their delicious biscuits?
posted by Talyn at
9:04 PM
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3 Comments:
Ummmm... besides have them make the biscuits from now on?
Chelsey has been searching for a long time for the perfect biscuit. She for a long time thought not working the dough too much meant mixing until the ingreadents formed a ball, but she has found out that one needs to kneed the dough until it is smooth, but not past that point. This produces a beautifully smooth textured flakey un-crumbably tasty biscuit. Folding also helps to help create yummy flaky layers - perhaps the kidlets got theres folded as they played. Think folding the rolled dough like a letter into thirds and then cut it.
With biscuits, you need to make sure that you at least knead them a few times to flatten your fat (I always use butter in mine). That is what will make them flaky. I also think that cut edges work better too.
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