Posted on 02/13/2020 4:27:29 PM PST by RoosterRedux
For 25 years in Georgia, I watched my mom make the same batch of six light, fluffy biscuits for breakfast almost every Sunday. Then I moved to New York, never to see a light, fluffy biscuit again. I arrived in the city in 2011, just in time for southern food to get trendy outside its region, and for three years, I bit into a series of artisanal hockey pucks, all advertised on menus as authentic southern buttermilk biscuits.
With every dense, dry, flat, scone-adjacent clump of carbohydrates, I became more distressed. I didn’t even realize biscuits could be bad, given how abundant good ones were in the South. Even my mom, a reluctant-at-best cook, made them every week without batting an eyelash. The recipe she used had been on my dad’s side of the family for at least three generations.
The more bad biscuits I ordered in New York, the clearer it became that there was only one way out of this problem if I ever wanted to have a decent Sunday breakfast again: I had to make the biscuits for myself. I did not anticipate the hurdles of chemistry and the American food-distribution system that stood in my way.
I asked my mom to email me the recipe, and it was three ingredients (self-rising flour, shortening, and buttermilk), mashed together with a fork. I’m not an accomplished baker, but I cook frequently, and this was the kind of recipe that had long been used by people without a lot of money, advanced kitchen tools, or fancy ingredients. Confident that I could pull it off, I marched right out and bought the ingredients. The result: biscuits that were just as terrible as all the other ones in New York. Not to be dramatic, but my failure destabilized my identity a little bit. What kind of southerner can’t make biscuits?
In subsequent attempts, I tried everything I could think of to get it right. I worried about buttermilk quality, so I bought an expensive bottle at the farmers’ market, which did nothing. I tried different fat sources, including butter and lard, which made small differences in flavor and texture but still resulted in a shape and density better suited for a hockey rink than a plate. I made sure all of my ingredients were ice-cold when I started mixing, which is a good tip in general, but did not fix my problem. I kneaded the dough more or less, made it wetter or drier. The only thing left was the flour, but I figured it couldn’t be that—wasn’t self-rising flour the same everywhere? We had just used regular grocery-store flour back home.
Out of ideas, I did what any self-respecting Millennial would do: I Googled it, and then I called my mom, and then I placed an Amazon order.
The one ingredient I took for granted had indeed been the key all along, says Robert Dixon Phillips, a retired professor of food science at the University of Georgia.
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
Not even close to the truth. My Georgia mom used good ol’ Gold Medal all purpose flour for her biscuits, and we lived all over the planet.
Up to this point in my life, I have not been a baker (but I love to cook). Since I ride a road bike many miles/hours a week, I can probably eat biscuits without blowing up like a balloon (maybe, not certain). Given that, I have been thinking about baking some good biscuits and this article caught my eye.
Carbs.
Cake flour.
My Mother made excellent biscuits. She was born in 1918 just South of the Alabama State Line.
She did one thing I have not seen anyone else do. She would put a teaspoon of salty meat grease on each one before placing it in the oven.
One of the few things that fast food chains do well is biscuits. Some of them are as good as Mothers”s.
Biscuits are the least of her problems.
Bojangles makes a pretty decent biscuit.
So, cake flour if you can’t get Lily?
I confess my biscuits are flatter than I would like but they are tender.
One hint; sift the flour. And use cold lard. Okay, two hints.
White Lily or Martha White self rising flour makes great biscuits. To make them even fluffier add a teaspoon of baking soda to react with the acidity of the buttermilk.
White Lily self-rising flour is available on Amazon. About $9.50 w/free delivery if you’re a Prime member.
Just about all of them make pretty good biscuits which is a little surprising to me.
When we were little, Mother used a wood stove. It did make the best bread and other baked items. Possibly because the cast iron heated very evenly.
IBTELP (In before the “Eat Lard” poster).
When the Brits bought Pillsbury, they fired all the Minnesota types that couldn't tell a biscuit from a cucumber. They developed te Grand. The world followed their lead
I don’t what kind of flour Mother used but I can remember a can of “Clabber Girl”, being on her shelf.
almost half of the country is too busy making trouble...
the other almost half of the country is too busy complaining about what the first almost half is doing...
the result is relying on fast food wondering what the hell happened...
Can’t? Just go to your frozen food section and you can select all the biscuits there are, all sorts.
It ain’t just biscuits they don’t do well in the north...
I was in Waukesha, Wisconsin and went into a grcery store and asked for country ham....
They said they didn’t carry that “brand”...I said it ain’t a brand, it’s type of ham...Salt cured...
They looked at me and after listening to me talk, one guy said “You aren’t from around here, are you?”
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