Biscuit Dough (Or, why butter is so awesome.)

“Yay, blessed is he who created butter, for he is the father of everything that is good.” Richard 2:1

Ok, so I don’t really have a bible book, chapter and verse devoted to me, but I should.  Seriously.  But whoever created butter should be extolled upon high.  At least given a medal. Golf clap then?  You get the picture.

You see, I’ve been fighting a constant battle with biscuits.  I have tried forever to figure out how to make the damn things.  I’ve read recipes until my eyes blurred, and nothing has seemed to help.  I always end up with hockey pucks.  They don’t rise, and they are about as appetizing as eating glue when you were in kindergarten.  You ate the glue, and have no idea why.  I felt the same with the biscuits I would make.  They were just awful.  Sadly, no one in my family never makes them from scratch, not even my grandmother.  They all resorted to biscuits in a can.  They still scare the hell out of me when I open them.  And they are ok, but not great.  I’ve also heard the saying that if you can make pie dough, you can make biscuits.  BS. At least I used to think that way.  Turns out, making biscuits is EXACTLY like making pie dough.  And as you’ll see, I am now a believer and a convert.

If you happened to read the pie dough ratio, then you know that the ratio is 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat (butter) and 1 part water.  All that really changes with the biscuit ratio is the fat and water switch places in the ratio, and the water gets replaced by milk, and some leavening in the form of baking powder is added.  Seems simple enough, and it is.  Oh yes, it really is.  The dough is wetter, which makes it a little more difficult to work with, but it’s worth it.  You’ll see.

And here’s our ingredients.  They are all-purpose flour, the afore-mentioned butter (keep it very cold), whole milk (I wouldn’t use 2% if I were you, at least the first time), baking powder, and some salt.

Just as with the pie dough ratio, we begin with cutting the butter into the flour, salt, and the added baking powder.  And again, I will use my food processor, because it makes quick work of getting that butter into the flour, and I don’t mind doing dishes.

Looks eerily familiar, and it should be.  Time to add the milk, chilled please.  Mix everything up.  I used a spatula to do this, because this stuff is really sticky, and I didn’t want to melt any butter.  To save making a complete mess of my countertop, I dumped the dough onto the plastic, and pulled the sides to the center to form something that resembled a rectangle.

So it more resembles a square, and it doesn’t look like it’s all mixed together.  That’s ok, because it needs to sit in the fridge for an hour.  You would be surprised what can happen in an hour.  Time to play some Rock Band.

An hour has passed, and now it’s time to roll.  I rolled it out to roughly three times its size like the book says, and folded it like a tri-fold wallet.  Now remember, this dough is still pretty sticky, so it will require quite a bit of flour to roll it out.  When you go to fold the dough and it’s sticking, this is where a bench scraper comes in handy.  If you don’t have one, use a knife.  Don’t worry too much if it comes up in pieces.  Just mash it together, all will be well.  Rinse and repeat.  Wrap in plastic, and back in the fridge for an hour.  Time for more Rock Band.

Turn on the oven to 400.  After an hour, do this again.  Now it’s time to cut the biscuits.  Not wanting to lose any dough, I just split it into 6 pieces.  I put them on the baking sheet lined with parchment, and into the oven the went.

And I waited.  Patiently hoping they would rise.  And they did, and it was good.  Twenty minutes later, I had biscuits.  And here’s the money shots.

You may notice they didn’t rise evenly.  That’s partly because of all of the folding of the dough.  If asthetics are that important to you, you could cut off the other edge before baking them.  But then you’d be called a loon, because you’d have to discard that dough.  There’s no way in hell you could convince me to do that.  Why?  Because these little gems are AWESOME!!!  I DID IT!!! I FINALLY MADE A BISCUIT THAT WASN’T A HOCKEY PUCK!!!! This is the best flaky biscuit I have ever had, bar none.  Any modifications you make would be superfluous.  You don’t need to, but it’s up to you.  They are so good, no additional butter is necessary.  Just a light dressing if your favorite jam or honey, or in my case, molasses, and call it a day.  Just try not to eat all of them at once.  It’s harder than it sounds, trust me on this.

There is only one teeny problem with this ratio. IT TAKES THREE STINKING HOURS TO MAKE FLAKY BISCUITS!!!  And that is a big problem, especially when I wake up on Saturday morning and decide I want biscuits for breakfast.  By the time they would be ready, it’s damn near lunch time.  It’s not that biscuits are bad for lunch (because they aren’t) but it’s something about having them with some bacon, scrambled eggs, and coffee.  There are two possible solutions  I have come up with for this.  One is to skip all the folding and rolling and just make a drop biscuit.  Should work, and I’ll give it a go sometime in the future.  The other solution is to make them the evening before, and cut and bake them in the morning.  I can’t see any reason why this wouldn’t work either.  It works for bread, and pie dough, why not biscuits?  I’ll do this in the future as well.

As for variations, hell, there are probably thousands.  Add pieces of dried fruit, and you’ve got a great scone.  I’m going to do a cranberry/orange biscuit for sure.  Fresh herbs would result in a wonderfully savory biscuit to serve with a hearty stew or soup.  Add some cheddar cheese and some finely minced garlic, and you’ve got a biscuit that is widely popular at a national chain seafood restaurant with a red crustacean on it’s sign.  Oh yeah, I’m coming after you next.

Ingredients:

King Arthur all-purpose flour

Central Market butter

Clabber Girl baking powder

Promised Land Dairy whole milk

Morton’s kosher salt

Up next: pasta dough.  The pasta machine has arrived, and it’s time to take a stab at making homemade pasta.  Stay tuned.