The saga of preparing the Tall One for the big wide world continued over the past weekend. To become a man of the world he surely needed to know how to bake his own biscuits, of which he is extremely fond. And while riding his bike over to the excellent Flying Biscuit for the occasional treat is all well and good – it is better to have first hand knowledge, with that hand covered in flour up to his elbows.
There are schools of thought about biscuits. There are Southern versions, Northern versions and Maryland Beaten biscuits. The flour changes and techniques vary, but in the end there is nothing more wonderful than the warm butter spilling over the fluffy, crumbling biscuit, hot out of the over and oozing golden, greasy charm.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons chilled butter, cubed
3/4 cup milk
Pre-heat the oven to 425°F
In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Cut butter into mixture until it begins to look like cornmeal.
Slowly add milk into the middle of the dough. Knead dough with your fingers and add milk when necessary. Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to desired thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. (We use an old aluminum cutter that was my grandmother’s for everyday, when we are shooting for fancy, for holiday ham biscuits, we use a Champagne flute, for tinier, more-appropriate-for-company mouth-sized morsels.)
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Be careful not to scorch the bottoms!
Some people feel that handling the dough is not good technique – but then they probably haven’t eaten Maryland Beaten Biscuits. I have never baked MBB as they seem are a little more labor intensive. Although I bet not too many Maryland Beaten Biscuit bakers have any stress. 30 minutes of pounding the dough seems a wee bit excessive to me… https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/maryland-beaten-biscuits-10000001965148/
Bon Appétit has a mighty fine cream biscuit: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/11/cream-biscuits
Merrill Stubbs from Food52 added cheese to her biscuits, making the irresistible even more sublime: https://www.food52.com/recipes/11454_cheese_biscuits
As the Tall One is cooking in a shared kitchen with a lot of young cooks this summer I sent him off with a colossal box of Bisquick, a roll of parchment paper and a cookie sheet. Lord knows he won’t have a Champagne flute for cutting the biscuits, so he will probably employ a handy dandy red Solo cup instead. Each generation devises its own techniques. And when he gets married, I may pass on the maternal aluminum biscuit cutter.
“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
-Carl Sandburg
.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.