Biscuits

I bought a lot of eggs.  Egg salad sounded good, so I bought an 18-pack of eggs.  Turns out I had the same idea the week before and had forgotten about it, so now I have ~3 dozen eggs in my fridge.  Made some egg salad and hard boiled eggs, but barely made a dent in the egg population.  So I woke up Saturday morning with breakfast ambitions involving eggs.

 A few weeks ago I felt I finally conquered Baking Powder Biscuits, something I feel a respectable cook should be comfortable with and able to whip up on the fly.  So I thought I'd give it a go, but I'm concluding that biscuits are something I'd have to make 20+ times before feeling *comfortable* and confident in my problem-solving skills.  These biscuits went well, but we didn't eat breakfast until 10:30.  But it was Saturday, and late breakfast is implied.

Saturday morning cartoons for the hobbits.

For something like biscuits, pancakes, dumplings, I skip the internet and my America's Test Kitchen Cookbook and go straight to the old, falling-apart Betty Crocker cookbook.


The other inspiration was that I had leftover buttermilk in the fridge.

Good ol' Betty Crocker knows how to get things done.  However, we have different expectations on the intended appearance of the biscuits, which you'll see later.

Sift dry ingredients together with your acquired helper.

1 3/4 c flour--I never realized until adulthood that 3/4 cup measuring cups do not come standard issue, and to this day it galls me every time I have to dirty the 1/2 and 1/4 cups!

Because of the buttermilk, decrease baking powder to 2 tsp.

Add 3/4 tsp salt. 

Indeed, I would also like a 3/4 tsp measure, but that I don't run into as often.

For the buttermilk version, add 1/4 tsp baking soda.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Now for the fun part!
Slice up the 1/3 cup butter.
*Keep butter in fridge until ready to use. 
Cold butter cuts into the dry ingredients much nicer.

Using a pastry blender, cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
I've heard you can do this with 2 knives, but that must be incredibly tedious.
It takes long enough as it is with a pastry blender, the equivalent of 6 blades.
Perhaps this is a task most suited for Edward Scissorhands.

When I was a little girl, I wanted so badly to help out in the kitchen.  I remember a few tasks that I was allowed to do routinely, and cutting the butter in for biscuits was one of them.  I can see now why my parents would pass this task off to me, its tedious and requires more persistence rather than skill. So its perfect for a motivated kid with energy to burn. And I was oh so proud.  In my memories I got the meal nice and fine, but I'm curious to hear my parent's version of the events!

You'll be mashing and mashing, and it won't feel like much progress at first.

When the butter builds up on your pastry blender like this, scrape it off so you're not just moving flour around.

My trick is focusing on a small corner of the bowl for about 20 strokes, then moving to another corner.  This helps get the crumbs in that area finer.

What does "fine crumbs" mean?  When you're pastry blender looks like this.

And when the mixture looks like this!

I'm always worried there's not enough butter, because not every flour crumb has butter in it, but this is not streusel, and that is not imperative.  The biscuits turn out fine when they look like this.

Measure out your milk.
I was making a double batch but only had buttermilk for recipe's worth.

Add the milk. 

The instructions say to stir in just enough milk so the dough leaves the side of the bowl and rounds up into a ball.  Too much milk makes the dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.

I just add the milk and knead in more flour later if its too sticky, because its close either way.

Stir the sticky mess.

Rounding up nicely, so...

Pop it onto a lightly floured surface.
I feel like an amature when it comes to "floured surfaces" and doughs in general, so I heavily  flour all my surfaces, because I hate when dough sticks to the rolling pin or the counter.

This dough was pretty sticky, so I sprinkled flour on top before working with it.

Knead 10 times lightly.
I fold it in half.

Then fold that in half.
Something I learned in pottery class in college, I'm sure its appropriate here.

Then roll it out a bit and repeat.

Roll out to 1/2 inch thickness.
This recipe is intended for 2 inch biscuits, so the ratios are right, but 2 inch biscuits are tiny, not useful for egg sandwiches.
And I got a little over-zealous in my rolling out, so in future instances I would roll them much thicker for larger cut biscuits, at least 1 inch.

Don't use a mug, it doesn't work well.
I switched to a pint glass shortly.

This is the actually fun part, for me.

Place 1 inch apart for crusty sides or touching together for soft side.

As I mentioned, a little over-zealous in the rolling out.

Knead together remaining dough and roll out again.

The last bit of dough makes for a homely biscuit.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 min.
These were this golden brown at 10 min.

Nice, tasty biscuit, albeit a little squat.
The kids had theirs with butter and jelly, and we had egg and cheese sandwiches.

"Baking Powder" Biscuits
by Betty Crocker
Makes: about 1 dozen.

Ingredients:

1/3 c cold butter
1 3/4 c AP flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 c milk

*Buttermilk Biscuits Variation
Decrease baking powder to 2 tsp and add 1/4 tsp baking soda.
Substitute buttermilk for milk. 
(If buttermilk is thick, it may be necessary to add slightly more than 3/4 cup.)

1)
Preheat oven to 450

2)
Sift dry ingredients together.
Cut cold butter into dry ingredients with a pastry blender until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in just enough milk so dough leaves side of bowl and rounds up into a ball.
(Too much milk makes dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.)

3)
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface.
Knead lightly 10 times.
Roll 1/2 inch thick.
Cut with floured 2 inch biscuit cutter.

4)
Place on ungreased cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart for crusty sides or touching for soft sides.
Bake until golden brown, 10-12 min.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet.