Holy flying calendar pages, Batman! This month REALLY got away from me! I promised myself that January would be be less hectic than December, but you know how these things go…
On the upside, when I checked out the Daring Baker challenge for the month, waaaay back at the beginning of January, this is what I found:
Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!
Perfect for a month full of classes, play dates, and birthday parties! Something I can put together in 15 minutes. I’m not a beginner to the world of biscuits, I’ve been making them since I was old enough to use the oven, which is more years ago than I care to admit…but they never fail to bring a smile to the faces of my family when I bring them to the table.
My own personal baking project, cooking my way through Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, has been something I’ve been working on since my youngest son was born, about 19 months ago. And of the 67 recipes I’ve made, 5 of them have been biscuits…from the traditional buttermilk biscuits, to cornmeal maple biscuits, to pecan sour cream biscuits, to pumpkin cinnamon biscuits. All of them were good…I mean, how could they not be, they’re biscuits, right?
But honestly, I don’t usually use a written down recipe…just throw together 2 c flour, 4 t baking powder, 1t salt, and 1 T sugar in the bowl of my food processor, buzz it to combine and get out any lumps, toss in a stick of butter, chopped into 4 chunks, right from the freezer, buzz again until the butter is in pea-sized chunks, pour over 3/4c buttermilk and buzz for a third time, just until the mixture forms some clumps. Then it gets flipped out onto a floured counter and patted out about 3/4 inch thick, cut with a serrated knife into about 8 pieces, and baked in a 425 degree oven with the sides of the biscuits just touching, until golden on top and set in the middle.
The resulting biscuits are tender and soft inside, crunchy on the bottoms, and just begging to be slathered with butter and homemade jam. Or, take the same recipe, but add 1 1/4 cups buttermilk instead of 3/4 cup, and scoop the dough on top of your favorite chicken stew recipe, and you’ve got instant chicken pot pie dough.
I decided to experiment with my standard recipe for this challenge, both out of necessity (I was out of buttermilk) and to increase the flakiness of the finished product. The buttermilk sub was a no brainer, I used my standard replacement, full fat greek yogurt. As for the flakiness, more interspersed layers of fat/flour equals more flakiness, so I decided to take the dry ingredients out of the food processor once the lumps of butter had been cut in, and dump them on the counter, put a piece of parchment on top of them, and use a rolling pin to pound them into flakes. Then I gathered the mixture into a bowl, stirred in the buttermilk to make a soft dough, rolled it out, folded it up like a letter in thirds, and repeated the folds another time. At that point I cut the biscuits with a sharp cutter and proceeded to bake them as usual. The result: A biscuit with a slight tang to it, and very clear laminations and flakiness. Overall, a great outcome. And judging from the crumbs left on their plates and the lack of leftovers, my kids loved them too.
The finished product:
Thanks to Audax for the great challenge! It’ll be interesting to see what my fellow Daring Bakers have come up with this month. What do you like on YOUR biscuits?
