I had some buttermilk leftover from making pancakes, so I decided to give biscuits another try. I broke out my avocado masher (okay, it’s a pastry cutter, but it’s also perfect for mashing avocados, which I do far more frequently than I cut pastry) and set to cutting in bits of butter with flower, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Next came the buttermilk, a quick stir to incorporate it, and quick knead. You know what I love? The feeling of dough coming together. You start out with disparate ingredients that seem like they’ll never come together – there’s always that extra bit of flour that you think will be left behind in the bowl – and after a few pushes, a few pulls, you have a smooth, beautiful ball of dough.
I remember the biscuit episode of Good Eats where Alton explains that his never knew why his grandmother’s biscuits were always so much lighter and flakier than his own until he realized that it was the arthritis-owing light touch she gave the dough when spreading it out.
With this in mind, I simply patted out the dough to the requisite ¼” thickness instead of rolling it out as directed. The recipe states that it makes twenty-four 1½” biscuits, so I used my smallest biscuit cutter, also remembering Alton saying to press straight down and not twist the cutter, and cut out just that many. The tops got a light brushing of sweet, melted butter.
With this in mind, I simply patted out the dough to the requisite ¼” thickness instead of rolling it out as directed. The recipe states that it makes twenty-four 1½” biscuits, so I used my smallest biscuit cutter, also remembering Alton saying to press straight down and not twist the cutter, and cut out just that many. The tops got a light brushing of sweet, melted butter.
After a ten minute bake, something wonderful happened. Light, flaky, buttery biscuits came out. You could see the layers as they puffed and pulled apart from each other. And the taste? Well, not quite KFC, but having (I assume) significantly less salt, butter, and, possibly, animal fat, they could easily stand on their own. They were certainly better than any packaged biscuit I’ve heated up, had a better texture than the Bisquick-aided ones, and they tasted nothing like the aluminum flavored pucks I made on my first go-around. What I would change in this recipe is the size and thickness of the biscuit. Next time I’ll go for at least a ½” thickness and a 3” diameter to more closely resemble a normal biscuit. While the tiny ones I made were cute and perfect for an appetizer biscuit sandwich or something of that ilk, something that could hold a bit of egg and some cheese would be quite nice. But, other than the size, these were easy and fabulous tasting. I will never buy packaged biscuits again.
Ingredient Comparison
Here I compare my biscuits to your typical Pillsbury can o’ biscuits, the kind where you pulled back the wrapper and held your breath waiting for the pop to surprise you because it did every time. There will be times where I use somewhat processed ingredients, so in the interest of honesty I’ll include the additional ingredients in italics underneath the main ingredient. I’ve done that with the buttermilk here (I’m certainly not about to start churning my own butter for the buttermilk).
| My Buttermilk Biscuits unbleached all-purpose flour baking powder baking soda salt unsalted butter cultured lowfat buttermilk cultured lowfat milk nonfat milk salt sodium citrate vitamin A palmitate | Pillsbury Grands Homestyle Buttermilk Biscuits enriched flour bleached water partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil sugar baking powder dextrose salt whey xanthan gum natural and artificial flavor |
No comments:
Post a Comment