You Are Making Your Biscuits Wrong!

See the article in tomorrow's New York Times Sunday magazine:
http://www.nytimes.com/20...rong.html?ref=magazine

As alluded to in the article, the secret to good biscuits is not as much as the ingredients but how you knead to  handle the dough with TLC!

I have yet to get decent biscuits since we crossed into TX heading west!  NM SUCKS for biscuits... and they don't know how to make grits out here either!

I cook a lot but I have never ever been able to make a decent biscuit.  Mamaw Smith makes them with ease but it sorta makes a mess also.
 
I know Hardees is not a favorite among many out there but I sure do wish I could make a biscuit like they do.
 
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Sundancer7

I cook a lot but I have never ever been able to make a decent biscuit.  Mamaw Smith makes them with ease but it sorta makes a mess also.
I know Hardees is not a favorite among many out there but I sure do wish I could make a biscuit like they do.
Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Southern Ladies are born with a specal gene for making biscuits! It just comes naturally!
And I'm a Hardees Biscuit Lover too!

On a recent trip to Charleston SC, my sister and her friend had wonderful biscuits at Poogan's Porch. She wanted me to try the recipe and tell her what I thought, so tonight I finally got around to making the recipe:
 
Poogan's Porch Biscuits (source: internet)
5 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 TB baking powder
1/4 lb. shortening
2 cups buttermilk
 
Mix flour, sugar, and baking powder. (I sifted these ingredients into a bowl.)
 
Cut in shortening with hands. (I used a pastry cutter - because my hands are warm from a week of 100 temps here in NC!)
 
Add buttermilk and mix well until all is incorporated. Pat out to 3/4-inch thick. Cut biscuits and place 1/2-inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.
 
Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. (Now here is where I begin to have my doubts. I always bake my biscuits at 450 for 10-12 minutes and they rise up nice and light.)
NOTE: I halved the recipe!
You be the judge:
 

 
I baked these another 3 minutes at 450 and they began to brown just a little. I would never serve such anemic looking biscuits, no matter how good they taste. Makes you wonder if the recipe was meant to be deliberately misleading.
 
These taste really good, very light and flaky. They were completely done at 350 for 15 minutes, but the pic is how they looked after that baking time at that temp. I might make them again, but bake at a higher temp.
Teresa

Most folks make the mistake of either handling the dough too much  and/or rolling it out too thin. Most any basic recipe or Bisquik/baking mix will turn out a decent biscuit if you don't play with the dough too much.

lornaschinske

Most folks make the mistake of either handling the dough too much  and/or rolling it out too thin. Most any basic recipe or Bisquik/baking mix will turn out a decent biscuit if you don't play with the dough too much.

See post #2 above and biscuits made with Bisquick should be outlawed in all 50 states and Canada. They're TERRIBLE!!!

Sundancer7

I know Hardees is not a favorite among many out there but I sure do wish I could make a biscuit like they do.

Count me as a fan of the Hardee's breakfast biscuit as well
 
stopped for them twice on the most recent trip we took.  Good eats, despite being a big ole chain

Another biscuit mistake is twisting the cutter. That seals the edges and keeps the biscuits from rising. Use a sharp cutter and press straight dowm.

sometimes its just better to go out for biscuits & forget about making your own no matter how many times you try & get disappointed.
I learned that with fish.

sk bob

sometimes its just better to go out for biscuits & forget about making your own no matter how many times you try & get disappointed. I learned that with fish.

Making Biscuits is like playing golf!
It can be frustrating and takes practice to perfect it.
Every once in a while you make a good one and that keeps you coming back!

tcrouzer,
I use Pioneer Buttermilk Biscuit Baking Mix and the recipe calls for preheating and baking at 450 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Even at that, I sometimes need to leave them in another minute or two to brown up. I also brush them with melted butter AFTER baking. Gives them a nice bronze color.
You might try starting out at 450 degrees. If that doesn't work, you may have a problem with your oven not giving you the temp it says it's giving. Stick a reliable oven thermometer in there to make sure you're getting the heat it's supposed to be giving. Many ovens are mis-calibrated!
 

Not a thing wrong with my gas oven - I use it every week to bake many loaves of bread that I take to the local farmers' market during the season. After calling my results in to my sister, she said that the biscuits they had at Poogan's Porch were very pale and not browned at all. I followed the recipe to the letter, even though I doubted baking any biscuit at 350.
 
I suggest anyone try to find the Southern Biscuit Flour Formula L biscuit mix if you want a step up from Bisquick and other biscuit mixes. It is a Midstate Mills product from North Carolina that I learned about in another forum. If you have a Food Lion, Lowe's or Harris Teeter in your area, they may carry the biscuit mix.

My BF thinks he makes the BEST biscuits in the entire world...ask him to make biscuits and he's on cloud nine! He uses both whole milk and buttermilk, self rising flour, solid crisco, I think that's it.  The problems:  although they have great flavor, they never rise, they never bake in the usual alloted time, he usually ends up putting them under the broiler, and they fall apart horribly. Impossible to make any type sandwich out of them.  I will never mention any of the above it would totally deflate his ego....
Also, he can eat biscuits with every meal.  I feel the biscuit is more of a breakfast item although I like them with fried chicken. Thanksgiving dinner, I prefer rolls.  If he wants biscuits he can eat them. My Mother and he do not speak to this day because she told him she had NEVER heard of biscuits on Thanksgiving and that it was totally ridiculous.

I like biscuits as much as the next guy but I'm shocked to see no mention of a biscuit McMuffin. For shame.

A friend in South Carolina's mother made biscuits fresh from scratch every morning we visited with her.
 
The were the best I've ever had.  She had a drawer bin in her kitchen cabinets that held probably 50 pounds of flour.
 
I get bugs in mine in a sealed crock!
 
She had six kids and not one of them have ever been able to make biscuits like their mom's or even good.
 
It's an art.

When I was a little girl, I'd stand and watch my grandmother make biscuits each morning when we visited: a clean (linoleum) countertop, a mound of flour, shortening or lard dropped on the flour, mixed in with only her fingertips, then buttermilk stirred in, again by hand to form a dough. After she cut out the biscuits and gathered up all the scraps of dough to pat out and cut again, the counter would be almost cleared of all flour and dough. With my grandfather's sausage gravy, the best meal I ever ate!

Biscuits they aren't just for breakfast anymore. I get a daily recipe from whatever company that sells Grands. Probably Pillsbury or Kraft. In the last week I have gotten a recipe for BBQ pulled pork on a biscuit and today a grilled tostada biscuit.

ces1948

Biscuits they aren't just for breakfast anymore. I get a daily recipe from whatever company that sells Grands. Probably Pillsbury or Kraft. In the last week I have gotten a recipe for BBQ pulled pork on a biscuit and today a grilled tostada biscuit.

CANNED Biscuits?????????
Blasphemy!!!!
 

"Whomp-em-on-the-counter" biscuits are good "homemade" biscuits if you are a working person!  I used to work 9 hours days (4 hours on Fridays) in a sewing factory and I knew women who would make scratch biscuits for their NON-WORKING husbands every morning for breakfast. Some of them wouldn't eat a canned biscuit. I told them they needed to let their husbands make the biscuits themselves if they didn't want canned biscuits. It was surprising how many of the hubbies could eat a canned biscuit after that exchange. As for biscuits.... Hubby knew where the oven was.
This is the recipe I use to make biscuits Baking Powder Biscuits and I omit the sweetener
Really good easy  biscuit recipe King Arthur Flor Gauranteed Biscuits
 
KAF Biscuits & Scones

They also sell Grands and several other brands frozen, in a package  not a tube. May give them a try. I like biscuits, always have. Probably have had hundreds. IMO if I'm going to drag out the flour, lard, buttermilk etc and make a big mess the result has to be worth it in my eyes. Based on my past experience that wouldn't be the case.

Ah, come on, nobody going to admit they use Bisquick or Jiffy mix to make biscuits?? I do.

I used to use Bisquick and Pioneer brands of baking mix. Sometimes I still do. I do like those "impossible pies".  But I don't bake like I used to. These RV ovens suck dirt for baking even though I have lined the bottom with unglazed tiles.

ces,
 
I love biscuits and gravy and have never been able to make a good biscuit myself.  But, I've found the FROZEN Grands biscuits (southern style) are nothing like the canned "biscuits".  The frozen variety are actually very good...not the airy things they try to pass off as biscuits in cans.

I'm not a good baker - my few attemps at making biscuits have been pitiful at best - smothering them with sausage gravy didn't even help them.  I'm not a canned biscuit fan at all.  For a long time we bought Mary B's frozen biscuits and thought they were the best and only until about 3 weeks ago at the market there were no Mary B's and I opted for buttermilk Grands instead.
Wow - these are better than outstanding - light, fluffy and a great buttermilk taste - I bought another package last week. They're really good.

I bought a pack of 12 frozen Grands buttermilk today. Gonna try them out this weekend both as biscuits and gravy and a sausage biscuit.

fishtaco
Ah, come on, nobody going to admit they use Bisquick or Jiffy mix to make biscuits?? I do.

I use Insta-Bake by Hodgson Mills.
 
Bart

fishtaco

Ah, come on, nobody going to admit they use Bisquick or Jiffy mix to make biscuits?? I do.

Nothing wrong with using a mix but there are better mixes out there. Bisquick and Jiffy are at the bottom of the Biscuit Mix food chain! Try:
http://www.marthawhite.com
http://www.old-mill.com/product/126/16
http://www.chguenther.com/consumerbrands/pioneer.aspx

The only time I make biscuits is after I've made chicken fried steak......that's because I have left-over buttermilk.  They are quite easy to make from scratch and are very light and lovely.  You must not overwork the dough.  I would love to taste the famous biscuits at the Loveless Cafe.