Biscuits

[Arthur Gamon]

Interesting article on how Southern and Northern renditions of the humble biscuit differ, and why. Wonder if any of our board members in the South would be willing to buy and ship me a 5 lb. bag of White Lilly?
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... F07x5Q2vIo

Also do any members have a recipe that shows the amounts to be used of the three ingredients mentioned in the article??

[Milton Hudson]

Williams Sonoma used to sell it in their northern and western stores. I can remember walking into the flagship store and wondering why they had bags of White Lilly on the shelves (they were wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent flour leaks). I make great biscuits using Pioneer buttermilk baking mix and frozen butter. Pioneer uses a soft winter wheat (unlike Bisquick) this is available in Walmart so you may be able to order. Also the Walmart's around here carry White Lilly so you may be able to order from there as well. Failing those two, just let me know and I'll send you some.

I will also add, that i don't know anybody who makes biscuits this way, so I can't help you. My mom (also a famous biscuit maker) used white lilly self rising, crisco and whole milk. I personally like the mix of shortening and butter.

[Arthur Gamon]

Well, Walmart does not have the White Lilly in stock any more, and Williams Sonoma reports they have dropped it from their line. My Walmart says they have the Pioneer buttermilk baking mix in stock, so I will try one. Do you add extra buttermilk to the dry mix, or do you just add frozen butter (if so how much?). Thanks for your answer, BTW.

[David Wright]

According to this guy, you can mix cake flour (low protein) with AP flour to approximate White Lily.

https://www.southernkitchen.com/article ... lily-flour

[Arthur Gamon]

Thanks David. I got a box of Pioneer Buttermilk baking mix mentioned by Milton, and will be giving this a try first.

[rfelthoven]

Love that Pioneer baking mix...

[Brandon R]

I'm a biscuit junkie, so thanks for sending that article. I really like Alton Brown's "Southern Biscuits" recipe and follow it. It's AP flour with leavening, buttermilk, and equal parts shortening and butter. It's critical to put the cut biscuits slightly touching each other on the pan for proper rising. Mmm...tasty.

[Scott Brunson]

My wife just made a batch.

Click to see spoiler:

but we use leaf lard rather than shortening...

[Brandon R]

Scott...that's what I'd love to use. Where do you buy it?

[Michael S. Monie]

This is the recipe that I use:


Buttermilk Biscuits
RecipeSquare-150x150
Buttermilk Biscuits

Homemade buttermilk biscuits are our favorite breakfast at the Cool Water Ranch. For years, we’ve made them almost every weekend. They’re so easy to make I wonder why more people don’t. When she was still very small, my daughter Mary Leigh started helping me. Now she’s completely taken over the job. The recipe is not revolutionary. There are only three ingredients: self-rising flour (White Lily is by far the best), buttermilk, and butter. (We used to use Crisco, but what we now know about trans-fats made me convert to butter as the shortening.)

Biscuit

3 cups self-rising flour
6 Tbs. butter, softened
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1. Measure flour into a large bowl. Cut butter into the flour and stir with a wire whisk until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. It’s okay for there to be a few small lumps.

2. Blend in the buttermilk with light strokes of a kitchen fork. Continue lightly blending until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Add a little more milk if necessary to work all the dry flour at the bottom into a sticky, thoroughly damp dough.

3. Spoon out the dough with a large spoon into lumps about three inches high and three to four inches in diameter. Dip your fingers in water and mound the dough up a bit if necessary.

4. Bake 10 to 14 minutes in the preheated 475-degree oven. They’re ready when the little peaks on the biscuits begin to brown. Don’t look for a dark overall brown; that indicates overbaking.

Makes six to ten biscuits.

[Craig G]

but we use leaf lard rather than shortening...

Ooh, is that vegan?

[Scott Brunson]

but we use leaf lard rather than shortening...

Ooh, is that vegan?

That's what I tell people

[Milton Hudson]

Well, Walmart does not have the White Lilly in stock any more, and Williams Sonoma reports they have dropped it from their line. My Walmart says they have the Pioneer buttermilk baking mix in stock, so I will try one. Do you add extra buttermilk to the dry mix, or do you just add frozen butter (if so how much?). Thanks for your answer, BTW.

ARthur,
I use regular whole milk. I have done it with extra buttermilk, but really can't tell a difference. I use about 7/8 of a stick of frozen butter to about 2.5 cups of pioneer. All these are approximations as i just use the same bowl everytime and it makes exactly 1 half sheet pan of biscuits. 24 or so 2 inch 18 or so 3 inch. If you like the flaky style of biscuit (layers so you don't have to use a knife to split) use a little more butter and do the fold in thirds in 3 directions like you are making puff pastry. Be very gentle with this and you get biscuits that are in layers. I use this same recipe for jalapeno bacon cheddar or just regular cheese biscuits.

BtW my biscuits are a rolled and cut biscuit as opposed to Fitzmorris's (Michaels recipe) drop biscuits. I grew up on the rolled style, so that's what i prefer.

[Arthur Gamon]

Last night I made my biscuits. 2 cups of Pioneer mix, 2 tablespoons lard, 2 tablespoons butter, mixed in with knives and a wire whisk. Then mixed in 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk. Spread dough out with my fingers, and folded it about 4-5 times. Cut out with an old cat food can (well cleaned) and got 10 biscuits. Cooked at 450 for 10 minutes, and they were perfect. Next time though, I will add another tablespoon of the lard and butter (mixed with the flour mix while cold). Thanks for all the info people gave me on this. It's left over biscuits this morning!!

[cjsavino]

A trick in a baking class I once took, when making scones was how to cut up the butter/lard. Both were kept frozen, the used a box grater, the larger holes to get nice pea size pieces of the fat. This was done directly into the dry mixture so if was coated with flour. Should also work with biscuits

[Jay Miller]

A trick in a baking class I once took, when making scones was how to cut up the butter/lard. Both were kept frozen, the used a box grater, the larger holes to get nice pea size pieces of the fat. This was done directly into the dry mixture so if was coated with flour. Should also work with biscuits

It does

[Milton Hudson]

A trick in a baking class I once took, when making scones was how to cut up the butter/lard. Both were kept frozen, the used a box grater, the larger holes to get nice pea size pieces of the fat. This was done directly into the dry mixture so if was coated with flour. Should also work with biscuits

It does

For the last 25 years or so I made sure there was a stick of butter in the freezer. Just started doing it back then. My mother never did as she used shortening. Had never heard of doing it prior to starting back then. I do find it takes a while to get the butter really rock hard, which is why i keep one at the ready. Over the years used several implements to grate, broke 2 microplane box graters until finally buying my most recent, an all metal job.

[Jay Miller]

A trick in a baking class I once took, when making scones was how to cut up the butter/lard. Both were kept frozen, the used a box grater, the larger holes to get nice pea size pieces of the fat. This was done directly into the dry mixture so if was coated with flour. Should also work with biscuits

It does

For the last 25 years or so I made sure there was a stick of butter in the freezer. Just started doing it back then. My mother never did as she used shortening. Had never heard of doing it prior to starting back then. I do find it takes a while to get the butter really rock hard, which is why i keep one at the ready. Over the years used several implements to grate, broke 2 microplane box graters until finally buying my most recent, an all metal job.

You win . I read an article or recipe about 5-10 years ago which made the recommendation and I never looked back.

[Milton Hudson]

Jay,
I posted the method over on the old Squires board many years ago. You may have picked it up there. Several years after that, i saw it mentioned in Cook's illustrated I believe. I just remember being frustrated using a food processor to cut the butter into the flour, it gave a pie crust texture to the biscuits. I then tried grating it, but that didn't work, just made a mess. Then i tried freezing the butter and food processing but that didn't work. So i hit upon using the large rasp style microplane. That worked until i cut my fingers one too many times. I finally found a microplane box grater that worked well. But the metal and plastic ones broke under the pressure of the frozen butter. So now i have an all metal microplane style box grater whose primary use is grating butter for biscuits. I experimented once with melting the butter, stirring/whisking into cold milk then the whole thing into the flour. Worked pretty well but i haven't really had a chance to experiment with it since.

[Jay Miller]

Jay,
I posted the method over on the old Squires board many years ago. You may have picked it up there. Several years after that, i saw it mentioned in Cook's illustrated I believe. I just remember being frustrated using a food processor to cut the butter into the flour, it gave a pie crust texture to the biscuits. I then tried grating it, but that didn't work, just made a mess. Then i tried freezing the butter and food processing but that didn't work. So i hit upon using the large rasp style microplane. That worked until i cut my fingers one too many times. I finally found a microplane box grater that worked well. But the metal and plastic ones broke under the pressure of the frozen butter. So now i have an all metal microplane style box grater whose primary use is grating butter for biscuits. I experimented once with melting the butter, stirring/whisking into cold milk then the whole thing into the flour. Worked pretty well but i haven't really had a chance to experiment with it since.

You're absolutely right, that was where I learned the technique. Thank you again! It's served me very well in the intervening years.

[robert creth]

This is the recipe that I use:


Buttermilk Biscuits
RecipeSquare-150x150
Buttermilk Biscuits

Homemade buttermilk biscuits are our favorite breakfast at the Cool Water Ranch. For years, we’ve made them almost every weekend. They’re so easy to make I wonder why more people don’t. When she was still very small, my daughter Mary Leigh started helping me. Now she’s completely taken over the job. The recipe is not revolutionary. There are only three ingredients: self-rising flour (White Lily is by far the best), buttermilk, and butter. (We used to use Crisco, but what we now know about trans-fats made me convert to butter as the shortening.)

Biscuit

3 cups self-rising flour
6 Tbs. butter, softened
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1. Measure flour into a large bowl. Cut butter into the flour and stir with a wire whisk until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. It’s okay for there to be a few small lumps.

2. Blend in the buttermilk with light strokes of a kitchen fork. Continue lightly blending until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Add a little more milk if necessary to work all the dry flour at the bottom into a sticky, thoroughly damp dough.

3. Spoon out the dough with a large spoon into lumps about three inches high and three to four inches in diameter. Dip your fingers in water and mound the dough up a bit if necessary.

4. Bake 10 to 14 minutes in the preheated 475-degree oven. They’re ready when the little peaks on the biscuits begin to brown. Don’t look for a dark overall brown; that indicates overbaking.

Makes six to ten biscuits.

Will be trying this weekend. Thanx

[Michae1 P0wers]

I'm hosting 30 friends for a dinner Christmas party "brunch" so I'll try the trick mentioned here of freezing and grating the butter. Needing about 60 large biscuits amongst many other things, so should be a decent undertaking. Thanks for the advice.

[Milton Hudson]

Michael,
I make the biscuits and freeze them. They reheat beautifully. I used to make a batch every two weeks for the kids' breakfast. (my kids have never eaten a cold cereal breakfast in their life) I would alternate between the cheese biscuits and the regular biscuits. The outside actually has a better texture when reheated. Unless you like a particularly doughy flabby biscuit. I find these disgustingly reminiscent of the fast food abominations and do not care for that style of biscuit, but it does have its fans i guess.

[RichardFlack]

Another example of Britain and America being "two great countries divided by a common language" (GBS)
... those aren't biscuits, they are scones!!

[Brandon R]

Richard, to who's post are you referring? I can't find anyone from GB...

[T. Williams]

In case anyone was wondering, I noticed and subsequently purchased a bag of White Lilly at Wegman's in PA today. I'll be making biscuits this Saturday to see just how much of a difference it makes.

TW

[TimF]

Anyone ever add hard cooked egg yolk to their biscuits?

I’m going to Alabama for work next week. I’m planning to pick up a bag of White Lilly while I’m there.

[Jay Miller]

Anyone ever add hard cooked egg yolk to their biscuits?

I’m going to Alabama for work next week. I’m planning to pick up a bag of White Lilly while I’m there.

Yes, that's in one of the biscuit recipes from The Pie and Pastry Bible. I like the richness it adds but eventually decided it wasn't worth the extra effort.

[MBerto]

I was never happy with my results, using various combinations of the Bittman and Lopez-Alt recipes. Got a distinct bump up in quality (most notably in flakiness/lightness) when I read this article and got my hands on some White Lily.

[Steve Gautier]

In case anyone was wondering, I noticed and subsequently purchased a bag of White Lilly at Wegman's in PA today. I'll be making biscuits this Saturday to see just how much of a difference it makes.

TW

Concordville store?

[MBerto]

Thank me later (and yes, this is expensive on a delivered basis, consider buying one less bottle of wine this year and you'll make up for it).

https://jet.com/search?term=white%20lily

[T. Williams]

In case anyone was wondering, I noticed and subsequently purchased a bag of White Lilly at Wegman's in PA today. I'll be making biscuits this Saturday to see just how much of a difference it makes.

TW

Concordville store?

Yes. It was on an aisle end cap between the baking aisle and the cereal.

[Greg Giere]

Thank me later (and yes, this is expensive on a delivered basis, consider buying one less bottle of wine this year and you'll make up for it).

https://jet.com/search?term=white%20lily

Awesome!! Just ordered two bags

[Christine Huang]

Fresh Market here in NY sells White Lily, so I always make sure to have a bag on hand. I also freeze and grate my butter. After trying many, many, many recipes and methods, my favorite may be blasphemous. It’s Stella Park’s recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits made with buttermilk instead of milk. The sweet potato makes for a tender biscuit, while grating the frozen butter gives it the layers and loft.

I’ve adapted this recipe many times to make Scallion & Cheddar biscuits, Caramelized Onion & Gruyere, and so on. They’ve all been met with rave reviews. I also like the fact that I’m sneaking in a vegetable, so they’re “healthy”

[Brandon R]

These are Alton Brown's Southern Biscuits: buttermilk-based with equal parts butter and shortening (I really need to find some lard). I cut up the fats and use my hands to "rub" the pieces into the dry ingredients to get those fluffy layers. I used regular old King Arthur unbleached all purpose flower. They were great.