If the point of biscuits is that they’re quick to make, rapid rising by using baking powder, then how does one make sourdough biscuits? Wouldn’t that mean letting the dough ferment for an extended period of time? Or is the sour part just contributing acid for baking soda to do its job?
My experience they are more roll like. Tasty, but not really a biscuit IMO.
We’d have to see the recipe to guess. One thing I do know is that once you have a sourdough starter, you have to keep it fed. That means removing starter and adding flour and water (and/or other things). So it’s thrifty to use the starter for something, rather than dumping it.
I had a second cousin whose go-to was using it for pancakes. The pancakes didn’t taste sour, particularly, but it made room to refresh the starter.
My mother made sourdough pancakes quite often. I’ve never heard of making biscuits with it, though. As noted, you want to be able to make the biscuits quickly, with baking powder, cold butter and buttermilk for a flaky outcome.
I guess you could use sourdough starter with biscuit mix to add some flavor. I made yeast biscuits a few times with biscuit mix and rapid-rise yeast. They needed a 1/2 hour rise time and came out more like rolls than biscuits. Sourdough would probably need much more time than that to rise appreciably.
The sourdough biscuit recipes I’ve seen use the starter discard, and it’s just there to add flavor instead of, say, buttermilk. They still call for baking powder as leavening.
I think the original point of sourdough biscuits, breads, etc. was that baking soda, baking powder, and purchased yeast weren’t available.
Now, for most people I think it’s either the flavor, or the fun of being able to make your own.
If there isn’t any buttermilk, isn’t sourdough starter slightly acidic? Will react with baking powder or soda. Makes sense doesn’t it. It should not only add a little flavor, more importantly help to make light fluffy biscuits.
I used to make fry bread with it. Sprinkle on some garlic salt and bitter herbs and fry it in olive oil. Dang I miss that!
The risen biscuits I’ve had were not sourdough, just regular sweet yeast. But Grandma would set them up in the bowl the night before, and leave them in the fridge overnight. (Or on the back porch if the weather was right.) So morning-wise they were even more convenient than the soda-risen variety.
And yes, they were more bready than normal biscuits. But still had a good bit of butter cut in, and pulled apart in layers.
Now I’m wondering since the best biscuits are supposed to be made with southern low-gluten flour if you would achieve the same effect by diluting regular flour by adding starch.
Supposedly this works for cake flour. I haven’t tried either.
Low gluten, or low protein? Some of the cooks swear by “White Lily” flour for biscuits. I sort of figured it was low protein and more finely ground. In a similar way, I think “00” flour is actually denotes a type of grind favored for pizza, is my understanding.
Yes. Gluten is protein, and White Lily is winter wheat, which is lower in it. So you can mix it or knead it without the strands of gluten making it tough.
And yes, cake flour is a much finer grind also. I don’t know whether White Lily is or not.
OK, they used to call high protein bread flour “strong flour” before my time (for making bread). I always heard AP flour makes perfectly acceptable biscuits and rolls (and cake) but is not the best choice for those.
White Lily was always the go-to for southern cooks. I think the company was bought out some years ago. I bought some through Amazon at one point, but didn’t see a noticeable improvement in my biscuits. I think you can get the same effect with any cake flour.
What about dumplings? Would those have better results with finer, lighter cake flour? Or home flour tortilla? I often use bread flour for cookies, since I prefer bread flour for a lot of things. Maybe they are chewier, but doesn’t seem to hurt anything.
You are unlikely to overmix your biscuit dough. As far as I know, that’s the only purpose for winter wheat, to keep the gluten from forming when you mix them.
I’ve never tried cake flour, but I think they’d be more likely to come apart on you. With dumplings you have to knead a little more, and form some gluten so they stick together in the liquid. But I could be wrong. I’ve never been any good at dumplings.
Experience has taught me that less is better, for sure. After the dough ingredients are just mixed, it ends up on a board and is folded and patted down several times. That’s it.