Please share biscuit tips

[Anonymous]

New to biscuit baking here. I made a cream-based recipe for Easter dinner. Family was super excited and they were tasty, but I felt they could have been better. Bottoms a little too brown and I wished they were flakier. I did add a little flaked salt after brushing with melted butter before they went in the oven, so that was good! Maybe I over kneaded the dough. TIA for suggestions!

[Anonymous]

No one will tell you their family recipe accurately, online. No one.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks- I have a good recipe, credited to James Beard. I’m primarily looking for tips on technique.

[Anonymous]

I am too lazy to make biscuits the traditional way, so I make these - they use melted butter and cold buttermilk. https://www.melskitchencafe.com/the-best-drop-biscuits/. I know you want technique tips, but for times when you want something easy, these are great.

[Anonymous]

James Beard is from Oregon, these are not going to be good biscuits.
There is an easy recipe that requires little skill and tastes great: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/5906-cat-head-biscuits

[Anonymous]

Freeze the butter and grate in in with a cheese grater. Don’t handle the dough too much. You want chunks of very cold butter to help create the flakey-ness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Freeze the butter and grate in in with a cheese grater. Don’t handle the dough too much. You want chunks of very cold butter to help create the flakey-ness.

Oh and cut them with a very sharp knife. You should be able to see the layers.

[Anonymous]

If you can say “maybe I kneaded too long” you definitely handled too long. You can’t knead biscuit dough or the butter begins to melt, the gluten develops, and they get tough. Cut in the butter until it is the size of peas, add the cold milk, and mix with a fork. Turn it into a board and turn it/press it two or three times just to get it to hold together. Sprinkle with four and pat it into a square shape to cut. Never knead!

[Anonymous]

Pastry or 00 flour (low gluten). 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening. Buttermilk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pastry or 00 flour (low gluten). 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening. Buttermilk

White Lilly flour is the best for biscuits and much easier to find than it used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can say “maybe I kneaded too long” you definitely handled too long. You can’t knead biscuit dough or the butter begins to melt, the gluten develops, and they get tough. Cut in the butter until it is the size of peas, add the cold milk, and mix with a fork. Turn it into a board and turn it/press it two or three times just to get it to hold together. Sprinkle with four and pat it into a square shape to cut. Never knead!

+1. Do not knead, just fold and press.

[Anonymous]

White Lilly flour plus Brenda Gantt on you tube.

[Anonymous]

Okay, this is a long shot, but does anyone remember Furr’s Cafeteria and their biscuits? I would love to find a recipe similar to theirs, but I don’t know what kind of biscuit it was.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all! Will try Lilly flour plus fold and press method.
Recipe uses heavy cream, which seems easier to distribute,
but what do I know. I’m from CA and not DH’s grandma, who was a biscuit queen 😉

[Anonymous]

I thought real biscuits used lard, not butter.