Life gets hectic and we reach for the canned biscuits in a tube. But once you make homemade biscuits and see how easy and incredibly better they are, you will never go for the canned tube style biscuit again, I promise! This week we learned how to make biscuits and my husband and I ate them for a week and they were still flaky and flavorful as the week went on; not in the least bit dry.

 

A little tidbit about flours: They are not all the same and it makes a big difference which ones you use depending on what you are baking. An easy way to think of this is that less protein = better for quick breads, more protein = better for yeast breads. If you try to use a high protein flour for a cake it will not work and a low protein flour for bread or pizza dough will not work so this is very important!

 

Here is a quick reference for flour and their protein levels:

 

Cake Flour 6-9%

Pastry Flour 8-10%

All Purpose Flour 8-12%

Bread Flour 11-13%

High Gluten Flour 13-14%

Whole Wheat Flour 14-16%

 

Lab 1 – Rubbed Dough Method – The characteristic flaky texture of rubbed dough is developed by rubbing together the cold fat and the flour, leaving bits of fat visible. When a rubbed dough is baked, the pieces of fat melt to create pockets in the interior of the dough. As the fat melts, steam is released from the moisture in the fat. This steam expands the pockets, which then become set as the dough continues to bake, thus creating a flaky, textured baked good.

 

This method is used for: scones, pie dough, tart dough, biscuits, shortbread, shortcakes and some cookie doughs.

 

 

 

1 lb and 14 oz All Purpose flour

2 tbs salt

1 ½ oz sugar

4 tbs baking powder

—————————— these are the dry ingredients 

10 ½ oz butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes, chilled

20 oz buttermilk, cold

——————————- very important that these are cold 

3 tbs chopped chives or green onion

6 oz cheddar cheese, grated

 

1. Cube the butter and place back in the refrigerator until ready to use. Must be very cold!

2. Sift together dry ingredients into a large bowl

3. Cut in butter, using a pastry blender. Blend to a course crumble with butter in the size of small peas.

4. Add buttermilk all at once.

5. Add in chives and cheese. Mix until just combined.

6. Dump onto a cold surface like granite and continue to combine by hand. Do not over mix or knead the dough, just combine the ingredients leaving fat pieces visible.

7. Roll out to about 1 inch thick with rolling pin.

8. Cut out with about 6 inch round cutters. Place on parchment lined sheet pan.

9. Brush with cream.

10. Bake at 375 (convection oven) 400 (conventional oven) for about 15 minutes.

 

Yield: 2 ½ dozen biscuits

 

If you want to speed up the process a little, a food processor on pulse will work like step #3. There is something chef-like about using the pastry cutter and there is one less large item to clean.