Craving Biscuits

For some reason I woke up this morning at 4 with a hankering for homemade biscuits.  I didn't realize I didn't have enough milk, until I got past the butter and the dry ingredients.. I found I only had half a cup, so I added sour cream and enough water to make a sticky dough... too sticky..so I added some more flour to make a soft, but not sticky dough, and let it rest a bit while my oven heated up.  You have to understand that this is how I normally cook, by the seat of my pants..oh sure, once in a while I'll use a recipe, but normally its.. whatever I have in the fridge and cupboards, and sadly, I rarely write anything down so things are hard to reproduce.  (But I still have a corkboard filled with blue and red ribbons from my county fair so I must be doing something right!).  To my surprise (my biscuit making has been hit and miss over the years), they came out perfectly! Pretty as a picture (sorry, camera got dropped in the ocean recently), Browned perfectly with fluffy insides.  They tasted as good as they looked too.  So while this thing is still fresh in my mind, I thought I'd share this recipe with you.
 
Sour Cream Biscuits
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp kosher salt
1 TBSP baking powder
2 1/2 cups of flour (to start)
water
 
cut butter into flour until consistency of coarse meal
stir in dry ingredients
add milk and sour cream and stir
add enough water to make a sticky dough (sorry can't be more precise)
add enough extra flour (up to 1 cup?) til dough is just soft but not sticky.
Knead briefly, let rest about 10 minutes.
pat or roll out, cut with regular biscuit cutter or glass,  and place in greased round cake pans.
Cook 14 minutes at 450 degrees.
makes 10

I love biscuits and these sound really good. I just wish that my kitchen skills extended beyond boiling water.   

I grew up eating a different kind of biscuit... my grandmother made biscuits using oil instead of butter, shortening or lard.. they had an interesting flavor and texture, but like me, she rarely wrote anything down, and even though my mother made them that way too, I could never reproduce them.. they aren't as fluffy or tall as regular biscuits, but they have a lot of flavor.

We had dinner at Red Lobster last night. I enjoy their light, fluffy drop biscuits.

Supposedly,this is their recipe:
Red Lobster Drop Biscuits
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups Bisquick baking mix
¾ cup cold whole milk
4 tablespoons cold butter (1/2 stick)
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 heaping cup grated cheddar cheese

Bush on Top:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
¼ teaspoon dried parsley flakes
½ teaspoon garlic powder
pinch salt
Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine Bisquick with cold butter in a medium bowl using a pastry cutter or a large fork. You don't want to mix too thoroughly. There should be small chunks of butter in there that are about the size of peas. Add cheddar cheese, milk, and ¼ teaspoon garlic. Mix by hand until combined, but don't over mix.
3. Drop approximately ¼-cup portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits begin to turn light brown.
5. When you take the biscuits out of the oven, melt 2 tablespoons butter is a small bowl in your microwave. Stir in ½ teaspoon garlic powder and the dried parsley flakes. Use a brush to spread this garlic butter over the tops of all the biscuits. Use up all of the butter. Makes one dozen biscuits.

Recipe courtesy of Todd Wilbur, "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2," Plume Books.

Red Lobster's biscuits are the best thing about that place.  Thanks for the recipe.

I usually make biscuits with Crisco and butter, but a few weeks ago, I experimented with a recipe that used oil as the shortening.
 
The "oil" biscuits were good, and very quick to put together,  but different in texture from those made with solid shortening and/or butter.  More "cake-like" and less flaky, I'd say.  I think they are also slightly lower in calories, but that's not really a factor for me when I'm eating biscuits, since I slather them with butter, anyway.
 
 

I make biscuits twice a week and I've been using Bisquick for the past 3 years for my biscuits.  I used 2 1/2 cups bisquick and pour enough milk slowly to make a drop style biscuit, it is not doughy.  Drop by very large tablespoon full size drops onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 400F hot oven, 1st 5 minutes, take out, brush salted melted butter on top, put back in bake another 4 minutes, take out, brush again, put back in for 2-3 more minutes till looks done.  Remove from oven, use a spatula to move them over to a rack to cool.    Sometimes I have added 1/2 cup grated cheddar, 1 tsp dried parsley and 1 tsp garlic powder to it, or sometimes just the grated cheddar alone. 
This recipe makes about 6-8  large biscuits.

Here's a variation using Bisquick.  I sometimes pour batter into paper cupcake liners to make cleanup easier.


 
Sour Cream Buiscuits:
Preheat oven at 425˚


2 cups Bisquick
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
1 (8 oz.) carton sour cream
  
Mix all ingredients.  Spoon into a 9-inch greased square pan.  Bake at 425˚ for 10 to 12 minutes.

I like that idea, Offlady, thanks!

I once tried a recipe that used heavy cream instead of shortening.  No additional liquids were used.
 
Very quick and easy to put together, but I found the biscuits to be crumbly, as opposed to flaky.  Not bad, just different. 

A good cheese biscuit needs some crispy bacon mixed in!