Biscuits - Not Just for Southerners!

My sons are of the age where they ask such questions as ‘what’s your favorite color?’ ‘what’s your favorite movie?’ and most importantly ‘what’s your favorite food?’ a lot. While I wish I could tell you that I answer the food question with something like truffle-infused filet mignon with beurre blanc sauce, the real answer is mashed potatoes. Cheap date, I know. Tonight when Will asked me this question for the ten thousandth time and I gave my standard ‘mashed potatoes’ answer, I took a mental step back and thought about it some more. While the potato - in all its glorious forms - is right at the top of my ‘I’d take a bullet for it’ list, bread is standing there holding its hand.

I looked up the definition of bread tonight. ‘Baked food product’ was the definition on one website. Baked food product??!!! That could describe roasted brussel sprouts and I think you’ll join me in saying that those two things are not the same...at all! ‘Something that nourishes; sustenance.’ Again, painfully off-target. ‘A staple food made from flour or meal mixed with other dry and liquid ingredients, usually combined with a leavening agent, and kneaded, shaped into loaves, and baked.’ Okay, that’s better. How about ‘the other/better half of spaghetti and meatballs’ or ‘edible soup sopper’ or ‘the addition of which is the deciding factor in whether a food situation is a meal or a MEAL’. Yeah, I think I’ll submit those instead. Homemade bread is a hot, yeasty breathe of inviting warmth that wraps you in love as you walk into a home (not house, a home). For a good part of my life, I was intimidated by bread making. I don’t think I’m alone in this fear. Bread is hard/complicated/a perfectly timed challenge...etc, etc, etc. You can kill the yeast if you over-knead, under-knead, use water that is too hot, use water that is too cold... I remember reading all of these comments. ANNNDDD worst of all, it falls into the ‘baking’ category (of which I am particularly fearful). I bought bread books. I watched TV shows on how to make bread. I just couldn’t bring myself to jump in and try it. Books went back on the shelf and TV programs got turned off. There was good bread being produced all around me, for a nominal price, so why bother trying to do the impossible and create some myself? And so the bread-making thoughts slowly slipped away. And I was happy...for a time.

About eight years ago, I was making Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving dinner is a huge deal here. I love the strategizing that goes along with it. Weeks ahead of time a variety of recipes that have been selected from the previous months’ finds get examined and culled. Only the best and brightest are allowed to make the cut. From there it is determined which ones can be cooked in the ovens or on the cook tops, what dishes can cook together because of time and temperature and how the whole thing will eventually all come together at the end. I had found a recipe for little braided bread rolls with poppy seeds. I wanted them! I wanted to create them! I decided to add them to the roster. As mentioned, Thanksgiving is all homemade with many foods being offered. To add a yeast-risen product of uncertain end result was...well, it was crazy. But I wanted to create them (I am nothing if not fearless in the kitchen)! The project was a success and has been recreated over and over again. It wasn’t hard. (If you can read, you can cook - remember?) The most important thing for me at the time - and still now today - was learning what yeast smells like. Dissolve the yeast in the water and add some sugar to feed the yeast (which is a living organism and therefore needs to eat) and stand back. The smell...the smell is so wonderful. To watch the yeast come to life is a delightful science project. The kid in me will never become immune to the magic.

I make almost all of our bread these days. Not necessarily yeast bread, but some kind of bread. Biscuits...great quaint word that betrays the strength and flavor of the actual end product. I thought Southerners were the only ones to have biscuits. I thought Southerners were the only ones who knew how to make biscuits. Not so. This Yankee girl can whip up a batch of biscuits like nobody’s business with this recipe. I make these several nights a week with dinner. So easy. From start to finish (finish being taking them out of the oven) the whole process takes about 20 minutes. Everybody always eats these, but nobody ever asks me for the recipe. IT’S NOT HARD! Please try them. You will thank me. There is no substitute for real homemade biscuits. Those pop can Pillsbury things should be outlawed. Trust me....

Really Big Biscuits

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cold butter
2 cups milk

Preheat oven to 425 F.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Using a box grater, shred cold butter into mix (I’m sure you could use the shredding blade on a food processor too. I’m just too lazy to clean the food processor just to shred butter) and stir to distribute it evenly through dry mixture. Add milk gradually, stirring just until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Turn dough out onto a heavily-floured surface and knead about 15 times, incorporating more flour as you go. Pat or roll dough out to a 1-inch thickness. Cut biscuits using a large glass (or circular cookie cutter) dipped in flour. At this point, the author of this recipe and I differ in opinion. She continues reworking the dough until all the remnants are used up. Personally, I think that after the initial cutting, only one gathering and re-rolling should be performed. The dough gets too much air incorporated in it (and the butter gets too warm and thus starts to melt) for the biscuits to be any good after that. I’m Irish. I know it’s a sin to waste food. I’m telling you that it’s not worth using the dough to the end. We will all close our eyes while you throw those few pieces away.

Brush excess flour off biscuits and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake until tops begin to brown, 13 to 15 minutes.

BTW, this recipe is from a book called ‘Family Feasts for $75 a Week’. Which may explain the insistence on using the dough to the very end. The author (Mary Ostyn) somehow manages to feed her 10 children, her husband and herself on $75 a week. I thought I’d give it a shot. Nope. Not happening here, but you will see her recipes pop up here from time to time - with additions and modifications.

Second BTW: I like the flavor of buttermilk so I have experimented with the addition of buttermilk instead of plain milk in the recipe above. It’s a great alternative. Don’t dismiss this! I see you shaking your head saying ‘when do I ever buy buttermilk?’ or worse ‘every time I buy buttermilk I use two tablespoons and throw the rest away’. Ah, so you don’t know the trick! Let me share with you a trick I learned from an old, wisened baker lady who hails from the Cajun group known as....not really. I got this out of ??? I can’t really remember where I first read this, but here goes... Add 1 tbsp of vinegar (any kind of vinegar) to just under one cup of milk. That’s it. Instant buttermilk substitute. So go on and give it a shot. It’s worth it!

My family (and everyone else) loves these biscuits. The house smells good! The kids are smiling! It took me 20 minutes! What’s not to love....