The Biscuit Chronicles: Attempt 4 aka Biscuit Fail

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. And yesterday morning was as good a morning for it than any. I buckled under the tremendous pressure of the biscuit. I buckled, and I pulled out the Bisquick. Yes, sad but true. Bisquick's the go-to, get 'er done baking mix for complicated things like pancakes and dumplings, and I have used it several times before for making biscuits. I'd throw some milk in with the mix and shazam! Instant biscuit. But this was all before I changed my ways...long before the biscuit chronicles and back in the Age of the Canned Biscuit.

The title says it all. Literally.

But the saddest thing about this, Attempt 4 of the Biscuit Chronicles, was the fact that I couldn't even seem to make Bisquick biscuit right. I read on the box that I was supposed to roll out the dough to a 1/2 inch thick, and to me a 1/2 inch is apparently more like a 1/4 inch....and the resulting biscuit was very hard and flat. But hey, with cooking there are successes and failures and cop-outs. And this was definitely those last two. 

In other news, I had a pretty nice Saturday. Mama, me, and my husband went shopping for an upcoming trip to the North Georgia mountains next weekend. We stocked up on all of the "essentials," which mainly consisted of food; we're food-centric people. After the shopping expedition, we came back to my house where I prepared Baked Ziti for dinner. It's really rare that I get to cook for Mama (she usually does the cooking for get-togethers and such), and it was a nice treat to cook her dinner...a little payback I'd say for all the years she's spent cooking for me. And the best part? She seemed to enjoy the meal. I guess all daughters seek approval and validation from their mothers, but her enjoyment of the meal felt especially wonderful considering what a great cook she is. Every "yum" and "Katie, this is really good" was a feather in my cooking cap...definitely needed after the Bisquick Fail from the morning. 

Baked Ziti in my new Rachel Ray cookware. Can I get a "yum-o"?

It occurs to me that I'm always looking to my mother for reassurance and praise, and she's usually there to give it to me along with a hug and a "Go get 'em!", or otherwise to say something like, "Katie, don't you need to wax your eyebrows?! There's supposed to be two of them." Which is also very helpful. As much as we might fight against it growing up, most girls (women) eventually aspire to be their mothers. We aspire to be strong and loving and unselfish and kind. I hope that one day I'm even half the mother mine is, even if I am one who makes biscuits out of a box or a can every now and then. Heck, even Mama did it, too. 

What about you guys? Any pearls of wisdom you can share that your mothers used to share with you? Or the better question may be, have you become your mother?

PS - Can't leave my Daddy out. I'm a Daddy's girl to the bone. I was lucky to be blessed with two awesome parents.

PPS - Just in case you were wondering, a picture of the Bisquick Fail:

The one in the back corner is the giant biscuit from Hell. It tried to eat all the smaller biscuits. I saved them.

The Biscuit Chronicles: Attempt 3 aka "Glory to the Biscuit"

"Glory to the biscuit." Is what Jeremy said today after Biscuit Attempt #3. And I guess I agree with him, because as good as the other attempts have been, I think this one was the best.


This attempt was based on a recipe recommended to me by a blogger who found my desperate call for biscuit recipes on 20SomethingBloggers.  Amanda of Something Savory did me a huge favor by introducing me to JPs Big Daddy biscuits, a recipe featured on AllRecipes.com. Amanda does an excellent job of the step by step recipe on her post dedicated to these amazing and tasty biscuits, and while you're checking out the step by step, be sure to check out her awesome blog. She has some yummy-looking recipes, and she also reviews restaurants. Just a peak at her blog is guaranteed to make you hungry.


So these biscuits were to die for, but our taste buds may have been a little confused and influenced by the mouth-watering SAUSAGE GRAVY that Amanda recommends for putting on top of the biscuits. Seriously, I've had a lot of gravy in my day, and this was right up there with the best!


The ingredients:


2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
3 1/3 tbsp shortening
2 tbsp butter
1 cup milk

Minus the milk, sugar, and salt. What a poor excuse for an ingredient photo.

Oh, and before I get started with the recipe, super excitingly, I got some new biscuit tools for my birthday, and this was the perfect opportunity to use them.

Pastry cutter (finally), new sifter, two new biscuit cutters, and an adorable new apron.

But back to the biscuits. After preheating the oven to 425, I sifted together my flour, salt, and sugar. I then added my Crisco and butter. Now, Crisco is something several people (Mama and Carla) have recommended that I use in my biscuits, and I must admit this seems to be the key difference. This particular recipe called for cold Crisco, and I don't keep my Crisco in the fridge, so I added it at room temperature. The biscuits may have turned out flakier if it had been true and cold. I used my new pastry cutter to cut in the Crisco and butter and cut until my consistency was what Amanda recommended as "coarse meal-ish." I then, slowly, added about 3/4 cup of milk, which proved to be just enough. 


The dough was incredibly easy to work, and I only had to knead it a couple of times to get it just perfect for patting out. I patted mine out a little thinner than Amanda recommended, maybe a 1/2 inch, and I used my smallest sized biscuit cutter to ensure a greater yield. I cut out about 12 biscuits.

Too many for one cast iron skillet alone, had to put the rest in a cake pan.

They took exactly fifteen minutes to bake. Oh! And Amanda's recommendation for putting the dough in the fridge before baking seemed to help. They turned out extraordinarily fluffy and tender. And the bottoms were browned just perfectly. Yum!

I suck at pretty food and pretty pictures, but rest assured, it tasted great. 

I recommend checking out Amanda's post for directions on the gravy. It may not look pretty the way I made it, but it was delicious. 


The Verdict:

Yum times a thousand. This is my winner so far. For now, this will be my go-to recipe when I want to make biscuits. 


What I Would Do Differently?


Absolutely nothing. Amanda at Something Savory obviously knows her food. Check her out and be impressed with delicious eats. PS - She's got a bacon cheddar scones recipe up right now that looks DIVINE. 


Call for recipes! Think you can beat JPs Big Daddy biscuits? Let me know. If I use your recipe, I'll feature you (and your blog if you have one) in The Biscuit Chronicles post. Just shoot me an email at katieross83[at]gmail[dot]com.

Linking Up:

The Biscuit Chronicles: Attempt 2

I learned something this week that I should have probably already known. If I had thought about it for a split-second, it undoubtedly would have occurred to me. I'm sure of it. Biscuits aren't biscuits everywhere. This was pointed out to me by one of my readers, Jo of the blog Chicken and Bees. Now Jo is from Australia, and to be perfectly honest, it never occurred to me before last weekend that I might actually have international readers, which is a thought that is nearly too exciting to handle. Someone from across the world is reading something this simple country girl wrote? COOL! I squealed for about an hour after Jo emailed me with her "biscuit" recipe from Australia. What can I say? I excite easily.
For those of you who aren't from the US, a biscuit here is probably more like a scone in your neck of the woods; although, I'm not convinced they're quite the same thing. A biscuit to you guys is a cookie to Americans. According to Wikipedia, a biscuit in the United States is a "small, leavened bread, similar to a scone.  In Commonwealth English, [biscuit] commonly is used to refer to a small and hard, often sweetened, flour-based product, most akin in American English to a cookie, or sometimes in the case of cheese biscuits, a cracker." So there you have it. Scones are biscuits. Biscuits are scones. Cookies are biscuits. And biscuits are cookies. Makes perfect sense. 

But that's all semantics. Let's get back to what matters: the food! This weekend I tried making Jo's biscuit-scones and what a time I had. I don't think I've ever laughed so much cooking. The recipe was both fun and original, and I feel just a tiny bit "worldlier" for trying it. Here's what the recipe called for:

3 cups self-rising flour

Pinch of salt

1 cup cream

1 cup Sprite

Yes, Sprite.

Now, Jo had to do some translating for me for this recipe. In Australia, Sprite and carbonated  lemon-lime drinks like it are called lemonade. Here in the US, lemonade isn't typically carbonated. Also, the cups in Australia are about 50 milliliters bigger than the cups here, but as Jo mentioned in her email to me, this particular recipe is more about proportion. I found that using the standard US cup worked fine.

After sifting the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, I added the cup of cream then the cup of sprite. I mixed this together with a butter knife until combined. I then turned the dough out onto a floured surface. Now, this is where I went wrong and things got funny. I'm thinking the Sprite must make this an extremely sticky dough. I mean sticky, sticky. Sticky like my nephew's hands are sticky after he eats fruit snacks. And not anticipating the extra stickiness of the dough, I didn't flour my hands or the board I turned the dough out on nearly enough. I swear it looked like I was making a plaster cast of my hands!

I never fail to get flour hand-prints on my butt when I bake...

...And a dusting of flour on my feet. Messy cook!

But after, and in spite of, all that mess, I finally got them on the baking sheet!

Once I got the dough off my hands and floured them a bit more, I kneaded a few times, then patted the dough out to about an inch thickness. I then cut them out and placed them on a slightly greased baking sheet. Jo recommended placing the biscuits close together on the sheet, and I did. This helped them rise beautifully! I baked these in a preheated 500 degree for exactly 12 minutes. They turned out slightly browned and very light and fluffy.

The Verdict:

I don't know what they should be officially called, but no matter what the name they were great and extremely tasty. Honestly, they tasted very biscuit-y to me, so I'm thinking a scone is very much like a biscuit. And these were easily the softest and most tender biscuit-scones I've ever made. The leavening power of the sprite was outstanding, and contrary to what I thought when I read that sprite was in the recipe, they were not sweet nor did you even detect a hint of lemon-lime taste. Yep, I'd definitely make these again.

What I would do differently?

Add more flour to my hands and board! I definitely probably could have added a bit more flour to the dough, too, just to make it less sticky-fied. But other than that? I wouldn't change a thing. Thanks to Jo from Australia for an excellent recipe! Be sure to visit Chicken and Bees for funny and quirky posts and some of the cutest kitties you'll ever see. 

Call for recipes! If any of you fabulous readers have any biscuit recipes you'd like me to try out, let me know. If I use your recipe, I'll feature you (and your blog if you have one) in The Biscuit Chronicles post. Just shoot me an email at katieross83[at]gmail[dot]com.

 

The Biscuit Chronicles: Attempt 1

I cheated. I kinda feel ashamed.

In my post An Introduction to: The Biscuit Chronicles, I claimed that I was going to start my biscuit-cooking extravaganza today and update every Sunday morning with the stories of my biscuit attempts. And while I'm still going to update on Sunday mornings, as you can see, I didn't exactly wait until this Sunday morning to actually cook my biscuits.

Yep, I'll confess. I cheated and cooked them last night. After a rainy Saturday cooped up inside ALL DAY (I cannot the stress words "all day" enough), with little to do but surf the interwebs and write, I was going a little stir crazy by about 5:00pm. I also have a bit of a cold, and I was absolutely sick of feeling bad and loafing around on the couch sniffling. So I got my lazy butt up and decided to do something. But what?

Laudry? Check. Picking up the various crap that ends up on all our tables and chairs after a week of working? Check. Cleaning up the kitchen until it's spotless? Check...well, kinda, my kitchen's never quite spotless, but you get the point. I had already done all of the things you do on a day spent puttering around the house. I would have loved to go outside and work in the yard, but alas...rain ruins everything.

I checked my watch. Hmm...about suppertime. I call out to Jeremy, "want shrimp etouffee' for dinner?" He enthusiastically yells "yes" from in the living room. Now, I should preface this with the fact that I bought 2lbs of frozen shrimp on our last grocery store trip. Just in this last week, we've had shrimp three times. Once at my sister's house: steamed shrimp. And twice here at home: shrimp and grits & a little dish I call shrimp Katie...a creation of my own mad mind. That's not to mention the fact that next weekend is my birthday, and in celebration, my family's fixing my favorite meal, a low country boil with what else? Shrimp!

Since I was beginning to feel like I might turn into a shrimp, I decided that maybe something different was in order. I searched my pantry cabinet and fridge. Some frozen chicken, boxed mac n cheese, canned greens. My eyes kept landing on the bag of flour I'd bought just for my biscuit experiment this morning. It was in the freezer. On purpose...not like the phone incident earlier this week.

Oh, why the heck not?! I got the flour out and decided that breakfast for supper was in order.

I'd already scouted out my first biscuit recipe. The White Lily Light Biscuit Recipe. It seemed pretty simple and only had three ingredients. My kinda recipe.

The ingredients:

3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter (or shortening)
2 cups self-rising flour

After adding my cold flour to a mixing bowl, I add my butter. According to the recipe, you're supposed to cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter (which I don't currently own). I used a fork until my mixture was nice and crumbly. Then I added my cold buttermilk and mixed minimally. The dough wasn't very cohesive, and it's not supposed to be. To keep things light and flaky, you work it as little as possible.

I turned the dough out onto a flour drizzled counter top and started pressing it down a few times. I didn't roll this dough out as the recipe called for, because I was nervous about over-working my dough. This part was a little difficult because the dough was so crumbly. I tried to use my hands as little possible, but in order to get things to stick together, I had to press down pretty hard. I pressed and folded in two rounds, then took one of my glasses and began cutting out my biscuits.

I put my biscuits on my preheated at 500 degree greased baking dish and slip them into the oven. Jeremy has been dancing by my side for most of this endeavor. To say the least, he's a little excited about these biscuit experiments.

10 to 12 minutes later voila! Biscuits are ready!

The Verdict:

These biscuits turned out tasty-licious. Seriously, their flavor would be hard to beat. So many of my past biscuit attempts have tasted too flour-y (yep, it's a word) or just bland, but these had an incredible amount of flavor for so few of ingredients. They turned out extra crunchy on the bottom, which was great, and the texture was light and fluffy, just as the recipe promised. And what's more? They turned out SO pretty! Just look at 'em!

 What I would do differently?

As much as I loved these biscuits and as tasty as they were, I'd probably do a few things differently next time I try this recipe. For one, I need to get a pastry cutter. The fork I used didn't quite do the job it needed to, so my butter wasn't very evenly dispersed.

Two, I might not preheat my baking sheet at this high temperature. The biscuits got extra crispy on the bottom, something I didn't care too much for.

Three, I'd work the dough even less than I did. I think I over-worked it. Something I'm infamous for with doughs. I think if I worked the dough a little less they would have turned out more tender. For the last two biscuits I cut out, I had refolded and pressed out the scraps from the first group of cut-outs. These two turned out looking like elephant man biscuits...bless their hearts. 

Call for recipes! If any of you fabulous readers have any biscuit recipes you'd like me to try out, let me know. If I use your recipe, I'll feature you (and your blog if you have one) in The Biscuit Chronicles post. Just shoot me an email at katieross83[at]gmail[dot]com.

'Til next time!

An Introduction to: The Biscuit Chronicles

So it's Friday, and in addition to doing laundry, cleaning house, and loafing around watching MTV True Life or Teen Mom episodes I've seen a million times, I try to use my Fridays off for something productive. Something good and never evil.  Today my good and not evil deed has to do with biscuits and my search for the perfect biscuit recipe. In order to progress this search to a new level, I've decided to start a biscuit project of sorts. To give a little background, below is an exert from one of my columns called "The Legacy of Biscuits."

The South is a region that is built upon a strong foundation of family and food, and the royalty of the Southern food family is the biscuit. All my life I’ve heard stories of biscuits. From the dainty soda biscuits my Daddy’s Gram would prepare with nearly every meal to the piles of lard biscuits that my Mama’s Grandma Tuggle would fix for her legendary Sunday dinners, I grew up with a respect for the Southern biscuit and its place on the Southern table.

The problem is that I haven't yet found my own biscuit identity. I love to cook, especially Southern cuisine, and if I can't establish a good recipe for one of the foundations of Southern cuisine, then I might as well throw in the towel and surrender myself to the fact that I'll probably never rise above simple things like chicken noodle gravy. So, I've decided to begin a search for my "biscuit identity," the biscuit recipe that will secure my place in the family's biscuit legacy. 

A past and poorly photographed attempt.

Beginning this Sunday, I plan to embark on what I'm going to call "The Biscuit Chronicles." *Cue dramatic music here. Please, folks, try not to get too excited...it's exhausting. Each Sunday morning, I will try a new biscuit recipe. I will document the ins and outs of each recipe, the ups and downs, the successes and failures. I'll hope like crazy that they don't turn out flat and hard as rocks, but I'll know that some batches will, and I just have to be okay with that. 

I will record The Biscuit Chronicles until I have found the perfect recipe. The biscuit of all biscuits. The one that works with bacon, gravy, sausage, and honey. The one that makes my husband react in a sincere and honest way (instead of the usual "Oh, I love anything you cook, honey" response).

Between now and this Sunday, aka Day 1 of The Biscuit Chronicles, I'll be searching for my first trial recipe. If anyone knows of a great recipe, or would like to share their own, please let me know. Really, you could be a part of history here.

By the way, it's Fab Friends Friday over at For the Love of Blogs, and in the spirit of the day, I'd like to recommend that in addition to reading my posts, you hop on over to the "Blogs I'm Reading" list to the right or my Link <3 tab at the top of the page. These are some awesome blogs that exemplify the kind of blogger I want to be some day :)