Finally Great Biscuits!

Yours truly, a bread baker, has finally done it! In the eyes of my family, my homemade biscuits have gone from "not as good as those from the freezer or a can", to "the best biscuits we have had anywhere"! Then they whipped up sausage and sawmill gravy to go with, and pulled out the homemade jam. Southern biscuits through and through, only as sweet as what you put on them!

Cooking on 500° preheated cast iron makes some of the butter melt out of the bottom and sizzle, while the biscuits rise and bake in 8 minutes flat! The bottoms are golden and lightly crunchy. Steam rises out of the soft, fluffy insides when you rip one in half. Worthy to be eaten with butter alone.

This is a combination of recipes from White Lily and
Serious Eats, tips from Deepsouthdish and from my friend Debbie, techniques from the One Pie Dough to Rule Them All, and a couple of last minute arbitrary decisions.

Biscuits

Makes 16-17 biscuits, including scraps.

Ingredients:

●     250 g   (2 cup)       all-purpose flour (King Arthur)*

●     250 g   (1.95 cup)  cake flour (King Arthur)*

●     23 g     (5 tsp)        baking powder

●     5 g       (1 tsp)        baking soda

●     11 g     (2 tsp)        table salt

●     227 g   (2 sticks)   Butter, salted**

●     551 g   (2.25 cup)  whole buttermilk***

●     more flour for the bench (I use AP flour)

* Or use all White Lily flour. I actually haven’t tried it with White Lily, due to lack of availability.

** Add 3/8 tsp salt if using unsalted butter.

*** Best not to substitute, but if you must, use one part Greek Yogurt and two pars milk in place of buttermilk. I haven't tried it with this recipe yet though.

Instructions:

1.    About 30 min before baking, heat oven and seasoned, but not greased, cast iron to 500°F, convection if you’ve got it. If iron starts to smoke, turn oven off, then back on when beginning step 5.

 I use two 10.5” round cast iron griddles and one 6” cast iron skillet. 

Possible cast iron substitutions:

                              a.    Baking steel or stone, like for pizza. Use a sheet of parchment and a pizza paddle to transfer on/off the steel/stone.

                               b.    Other heavy, oven-safe pan that will hold heat.

2.    Combine dry ingredients in a pile: all-purpose and cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together on a large “bench” (board or countertop). 

3.    Work-in 1/4 butter, cut-in the rest: Working quickly to keep butter as cold as possible:

a.    Work-in 1/4 of the butter until flour is crumbly not fluffy: Cut into pats, bury in the flour mixture, and use the heel of one hand to smear the butter into the four. Use dough knife in the other hand to remove butter from your hand and re-coat exposed butter with flour. Use fingertips to crumble completely in. Continue until all butter lumps are gone, and flour is yellow and crumbly, more like cornmeal rather than powdery flour.

b.    Cut-in remainder of the butter until pea-size and under: Cut remaining butter into pats. Use a dough knife to cut the butter into the flour and a spoon to scrape off the dough knife, until butter is in varying sized pieces, the largest about pea-sized.

4.    Fold buttermilk in gradually, allowing flour to absorb, making barely-cohesive dough: Use dough knife and spoon to pile up the flour, and cut into the center to make a well; add a couple tablespoons buttermilk, then pull up flour from the edges to fill it back in. Keep buttermilk from flowing out from the flour pile. Continue making and filling wells, until all the buttermilk has been added, and a barely cohesive dough has formed. Use the dough knife to smooth it into a mound, but it will still be quite rough.

5.    Add a generous amount of flour to the work surface, and move dough on top. Add more flour over the top of the dough. Roll into a ½” thick rectangle. Brush off excess flour, then fold into thirds like a letter. Flour the top, and repeat the brushing, folding and rolling a total of 3 times.

6.    Fold two sides in to meet (making two layers not three) and roll, then fold in half and roll a final time:

a.    Roll into rectangle just over three times as wide as your cutter.

b.    ⅝” to ¾” thick, slightly thicker than a Mason jar lid.

c.    Chill in fridge if not ready to bake immediately. Don’t hold very long, even in the fridge.

7.    Cut straight down, no twisting the cutter!! Use a floured 2 7/8” biscuit cutter. Form scraps into round-ish shapes.

8.    Place on baking surface, 1 inch apart for crisp sides or almost touching for soft sides. 7 biscuits fit on each 10.5” cast iron griddle, with the last two on a 6” skillet.

9.    Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve on folded paper towels on top of warm cast iron to help them stay warm.