I found my recipe on oldfashionedliving.com yesterday. The website had "oldfashioned" in it, so it sounded credible to me.
Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
4 tablespoons butter or shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
about 3/4 cup milk
Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.
The dough was really thin and I didn't have anything to roll it out with so I used my nalgene (for non-mountain people, that's a water bottle). I knew they were a little too thin as I put them on the pan, but I said a little prayer and shut the oven.
It turns out that God did not make my biscuits magically delicious. Which makes sense since God is not a genie. I reaped the natural consequences of years of watching Maw Maw make biscuits but not learning how to make them myself. They were terrible. Brian ate three anyway and said they were good. I wouldn't even eat them. So Brian and I had to have a talk about what it means to be credible. I explained that if he says that things are good when they are empirically not good, he loses credibility with me when I need to know if something is good enough to serve to other people.
Like today, I made pumpkin muffins (recipe will be posted soon) and brought one to Brian's friend who works the shift after him at the Coffee Cart. I didn't want to feed his friend a mediocre muffin but I couldn't ask Brian if it was good because he lost credibility with the biscuits. But I'm not complaining about Brian. He's a real gem, eats everything I make without complaining.
We had two left over biscuits and you know me, I hate to waste even the worst of foods. So this morning I made chocolate gravy in which to drown them. I was able to eat about a half of one and so was Brian. I didn't like the recipe I used for the gravy as much as the one my friend LaShanda's mom made when we were growing up. Does anyone have a good chocolate gravy recipe?
I have the same sifter. I want one like my mom's (you turn a handle instead of squeezing - much easier).
ReplyDeleteAlso, buttermilk makes the best biscuits! (Or whole- or low-fat, not nonfat, plain yogurt thinned with a bit of water.)
If you ever want to try biscuits again, this recipe is Old Faithful for me and my mom. I think it is from a Jeff Smith cookbook.
BISCUITS (small batch)
1 cup + 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon soda
1/4 cup shortening or cold butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
Heat oven to 500 degrees F. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in fat till mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in buttermilk -- DO NOT OVERMIX. The dough will be sticky! Turn out onto a generously floured surface. Knead only a couple of times, till the dough pretty much sticks together. Pat out (no rolling pin needed) about 3/4 inch thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter, set close together in pan (if the edges touch, the biscuits rise higher) and bake in hot oven for 12-15 minutes, or till gold.
If you want REALLY good (or bad) biscuits, smear a cast iron skillet with Crisco and heat it up in the oven. Then turn the biscuits over in the fat so they start to puff up and fry a little bit before you bake them.
I've never tried chocolate gravy, though.
What on earth does it mean to "cut" in the fat (I use butter because I cannot in good conscious by lard)? It's hard to mix cold butter into flour. I think I'll need a video instruction for this one. Maybe an over the phone tutorial? ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the help Em! I'll try again with your recipe.
Oh, Ashley, your biscuits LOOKED beautiful. To "cut in the fat," you'll need another tool - a pastry blender. Or, you can use a couple of knives and - well - just cut at the ingredients criss-cross style until you have a crumbly consistency in the bowl. If lard sounds gross (blech!), vegetable shortening is okay. Butter is always best - and - YOU CAN NEVER GET TOO MUCH BUTTER! Right, Emily?!! - Emily's Mom
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've never been able to actually develop the courage to try chocolate gravy. It just sounds really sickening to me. I prefer my breakfast without chocolate!
ReplyDeleteIt all looks good nonetheless.
Ok, I have NEVER even heard of chocolate gravy until today when I passed by some random place in Dyersburg claiming they had it. Then I get on here merely hours later and find you making none other than chocolate gravy. Crazy!
ReplyDelete