Buttermilk biscuits, here we go! Sift the flour, roll the dough...

Cafe Society
1

Well… now that you mention it, I have been having problems with my biscuits.
I’m using a recipe out of a 1930ish edition of a Fanny Farmer book, but something is going terribly awry.

The first time or two I made them, they were delectible. Rich and flaky and orally orgasmic with butter’n honey. Each time I’ve made them since, though, they’ve been tougher and tougher. What could be causing this? Am I kneading the dough too long and building up too much gluten?

I’m making them in a Kitchenaid stand mixer, using bacon grease as the shortening (hell, I figure if you’re gonna make a scratch breakfast on a Sunday morning, you might as well go for broke) and your typical unbleached, all-purpose flour.

Teach me, o wise ones!

2

There’s your problem right there.

You should just barely knead them. Use your fingers, and stop well before you think you should.

3

Never use a mixer for your biscuits, use a bowl and your hands or two wooden spoons only. You are almost certainly overworking the dough. Try using a southern brand of flour, they typically have a lower gluten content (like White Lily or even a cake flour).

4

Maus Magill and lokij are right on; also, I’m not sure about using bacon grease. Lard, yes. Bacon grease might have enough salt in it to eff up the balance between it and the baking powder.

I don’t do lard (which is supposedly ideal), but I use a combo of shortening and unsalted butter (about 2 to 1). And definitely don’t use yankee flour unless you’re making doorstops.

5

If you use bacon grease, make sure it’s chilled solid, and make sure you don’t melt it in the process of kneading it (which the Kitchen-Aid surely does). Not only are you kneading too much gluten into it, but you’re using liquified fat, which makes baked goods flat and hard. (Good if you want ginger snaps or hard tack, bad if you want fluffy biscuits.) You want the solid fat to take up room in the dough - to keep the doughy bits from touching - until the heat of the oven has solidified the dough a bit. Only then do you want the fat to melt, leaving air pockets in their place. Since, at that point, the dough has stiffened, the space will remain and your biscuits will be flakey.

6

A previous thread on biscuits…

7

Hmm… Maybe I’ll try that. I’ve always thought my biggest problem was over-kneading, even when I didn’t knead.

8

My guess is it’s the failure to clap one’s hands and stomp one’s feet.

9

URGH! I meant to say I don’t do lard anymore… :smack:

10

I use Dixie Lily or Martha White flour (or Publix brand, it’s good, too) less shortening than the recipes call for, more milk than they call for, and mix the dough with my fingers. Then I turn it out on a floured surface, flour it all around, then kneed the whole thing 3-4 turns, then make my biscuits. I also use an insulated cookie sheet so they get done all the way through before the bottoms get hard and burnt.

11

No bacon grease, no KitchenAid mixer. You can use a food processor on pulse, though. Process until the mixture looks like coarse oatmeal, you want to see little bits of butter. It should be firm, cold butter, but not frozen. If you are treating yourself, and it sounds as though you are, use unsalted butter. Why waste your time on anything less yummy?

You do not need to use pastry or cake flour, I’ve been baking biscuits with Robin Hood or similar all-purpose flour for over 40 years and my biscuits are famous for floating off the plate. We have special nets to catch them as they fly up, actually.

While it is certainly possible to over-knead, you do need to knead the dough about 12-15 times. You can re-roll the dough after cutting out the first biscuits, but the last bits of dough I usually just moosh together and while they are not as pretty, they are still nice.

If you don’t have a food processor, use a pastry blender or two knives, and as always with these things, work quickly but gently and firmly. While holding your mouth the right way, and singing some meaningful tune.

Another thing is, try baking them at 15 - 25 degrees (F) hotter than the recipe calls for, for a shorter time, the more intense heat melts the butter more quickly, which creates steam, which lifts the biscuits higher.

Save the bacon grease for Spanish Rice or frying leftover potatoes. It is not suitable for baking with, as has been pointed out above.

12

One more thing. If baking powder is an ingredient, and you haven’t bought it recently, throw it out and buy a fresh can. Baking powder is a dry acidic powder mixed with a dry alkaline powder. Mix it into a moist dough, and it fizzes, to make the biscuit rise. Once you open the can, water vapor slowly makes the powder fizz in the can and go dead.

13

And don’t twist your biscuit cutter; straight down, straight back up.

14

My father’s biscuit cooking tune:

Grandma’s in the cellar
Mercy, can’t you smell her
Cookin’ biscuits on that darn ol’ dirty stove?
In her eye there is a matter
That keeps drippin’ in the batter
While she whistles
And the >snerk< runs down her nose.

Funny - my wife won’t let me sing it within earshot of the kids.

15

Damn now we gotta get the posse in the hoopty and hit up Broadway. Oh, and those biscuits- they’ll give you enough back to put on the glass. Swass.

16

As long as they’re moving to a funky beat…

17

I’ve developed a minor addiction to biscuits with sausage gravy (white gravy).

I tried several ‘completely from scratch’ recipes, and could never get them to rise properly, or be as tender as I wanted them. I’ve bought new tins of baking powder, different flour types, (AP & cake, and combinations of both), tried several thicknesses, and all manner of fats. None worked to my satisfaction…

Until… I decided to chuck it all, and cheat. I use self-rising flour. (Purists may scoff, but I’m a yankee, and appreciate good food, even if I don’t have the Southern mo-jo to make it work properly from scratch).

<note, that I measure nothing here, I’ve developed the ‘feel’>

Pour some flour into a bowl. Cut in a combination of shortening & butter, until it looks like enough ‘pea sized’ bits are mixed in.

Pour some milk on top, and give it 5-10 stirs to combine (you can adjust the quantity after 3 stirs if it’s looking too wet, or dry. Add flour or milk as appropriate). Remove to a floured surface. Flatten, fold over, and flatten again. Repeat 4 or 5 times. Cut out biscuits with a small can that has had it’s ends removed (We use an old mandarin orange can, the small one). When you can’t cut any more, push the dough together, with as little kneeding as possible, and cut again. The last little bit gets rolled into a ball.

Lay onto a baking sheet/cookie sheet so that they touch, brush with milk. Bake at 425F until lightly golden brown.

Somehow, I usually end up with about 9 biscuits, and one ‘mutant ball shaped one,’ unless my 2yo daughter is “helping”… then she eats the ‘ball bit’ raw. <insert pukey smile here> :eek:

18

Okay, nix the mechanics, knead as little as possible to combine, use butter or shortening instead, try baking a tiny bit hotter, check.
Will try tomorrow and report back, thanks everyone!

Oh, and

Foot stomping, yes, but can’t get a satisfactory hand-clap going covered in biscuit dough. I am, however, able move my butt to the funky beat (uh huh) while kneading, does that suffice?

19

Someone upthread mentioned a new tin of baking powder, if you’re doing a baking powder/buttermilk hybrid. That’s a *very *good suggestion, especially if your recipe used to work and now isn’t.

20

AB gave a stern talking-to regarding elderly baking powder in a Good Eats episode a month or so ago, so my tin is pretty new.

I pretty much do anything he tells me to do.