MWF (HWP) looking for perfect biscuit for occasional fun eating...

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My biscuits are awful. They are like bus tokens...hard and flat. Help! Anyone who makes light, flakey biscuits, please help this reader! Thanks! (btw, I use B. Crocker's recipe from the 1977 edition of the big red book.) Thanks!

-- Anonymous, August 30, 2001

Answers

It's as easy as 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3/4!

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

4 tablespoons solid shortning (butter)

3/4 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients together. Cut shortning in with a pastry blender or two knives, or rub in to dry ingredients with fingers til mix looks like small peas. Make a well in the center, add milk and stir until just moistened. Turn out on lightly floured board and knead very gently just a few times - no more than 10 or so. Pat to 1/2 the thickness you want the biscuts to be and cut with a glass or biscut cutter. For crisper biscuts, place on cookie sheet with sides apart, for less crispy, put in cake pan with sides touching. Bake at 400 til tops are browned.

If your biscuts are hard and flat, you might want to check your baking powder; or just buy a new tin. Storing it near heat makes it go bad faster. Too much flour and too much kneading can also make biscuts hard and flat.

For shortcake, I add a couple extra tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup sugar to this mix.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2001


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