Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Apparently I'm bread-obsessed, since that's what I keep posting about lately. But I happened to see a segment of a P. Allen Smith show yesterday where a B&B owner was talking about her buttermilk biscuit recipe, which she bakes in muffin tins. So of course I had to try it this morning, and I think it's seriously the best biscuit I've ever made. And I've tried a lot of recipes over the years.

What intrigued me was the muffin tin part, because of course when biscuits are baked on a cookie sheet and they have a fair amount of butter in them, invariably a lot of the fat oozes out during baking and is left on the sheet. Plus, except for cream biscuits, spreading can be a major pain with biscuits, even if everything is a cold as possible going into the oven.

Anyway, the recipe seemed a little dated, given that it calls for margarine. I subbed lard for that, and also because I use unsalted butter and the lard doesn't have salt (as far as I'm aware), I added 1 t. table salt. But other than that, it is a serious keeper. It made 24 rounds, and I only baked 4 and froze the rest. Delicious crispy edges all around but very tender and flaky inside. Just goes to show you never know where you're going to come across a great recipe. I'd never even been to his website before and am not a garden person so rarely see his show.

http://pallensmith.com/recipes/recipe/reginas-butter-biscuits/

Emilie

By coincidence, we just made cornmeal drop biscuits in muffin cups tonight. Also good.

I am going to make some combo sourdough and baking powder biscuits for Easter dinner tomorrow and was considering patting the dough into place on the pan and cutting square. I have seen it done on video but haven't done it myself. I could get more on the pan that way, no overworking the dough, and could use my toaster oven and avoid heating the oven (the AC is already on here).

Has anyone used the method?

--Lisa

Lisa,

Sure, my sweetie cuts biscuits square all the time. You'd need to separate them by 1/4" though if you want them to cook all around.

Also, share recipe? I'll post the cornmeal ones.

I usually pat them into a square on my counter and cut them. Or pat into a circle and cut wedges. I have to have a pretty good reason to cut circles.

Hmmmm. I swear I have seen recipes that they basically sliced them and baked them without any any spacing but I can't find a single one in any of my cookbooks or any online resource at the moment.

If you can cook cut biscuits shoulder to shoulder in a cast iron skillet after cutting into rounds, I don't see why you'd have to separate the after cutting square. But a holiday dinner isn't the time to experiment because I won't have time to make more starter.

I have used this recipe before with success, and I usually double it:
http://www.food.com/recipe/grandmas-sou ... uits-18995

--Lisa

Lisa,

Diner-type biscuits are packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. I'm pretty sure that requires a slightly different recipe, but since I haven't made that style, I don't really know.

the biscuits from Pies and Thighs in Brooklyn found in Bon Appetit were amazing, though took me three tries to get my mojo (I was determined to have them for Thanksgiving). White lily flour made the difference, absorbing the liquid best. I like these even better than Pam Anderson's (no not that Pam Anderson...) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/ ... ts-5121476

Phoenix, that link didn't work.

Unfortunately I must report back that what I happily thought were "best biscuits ever" didn't live up to the hype when baked straight from the freezer. The recipe author made a big point on the show of saying that that's a great thing about the recipe, since she runs a B&B and so can keep a large quantity frozen for baking every day. But when I baked a few straight from the freezer last week they came out like hockey pucks. I'm going to try it again, maybe I didn't bake them long enough. But that's unfortunately the update on that recipe for now

Emilie