For the Love of Food

Last night I was really excited. I was going to make fried chicken, biscuits, and coleslaw, and I was going to be whisked away back to my childhood having a pick nick at the beach (I grew-up in Miami). I made the biscuits, the coleslaw, and go to get the chicken out of the refrigerator…no chicken?? Where could it have gone? Raw chicken doesn’t just get up and go…hmm. It seems that on my trip to the butcher last week I either never got the chicken or I left it there. I will find out on Monday when I go back. Anyways, nothing here is open for grocery shopping on Sundays, so I pulled out some frozen calamari from the freezer and we had calamari with aioli, coleslaw, and biscuits. Funny…yes, very funny. I really wanted fried chicken…

Anyways, the biscuits were good, but in my haze of trying to get everything cooked while holding a sick baby in arm, I didn’t add enough butter, and while there were soft, I knew they could be much better. I so I made them again, just 15 minutes ago. Wow, the right amount of butter and it sure makes a whole world of difference. I used a really really simple and quick recipe from Homesick Texan. I did however find that her recipe was lacking in salt. I would add 1 teaspoon instead of 1/2 a teaspoon next time. She also mentioned that traditional Texan biscuits have sourdough started and lard in them. Next time I will make some of those and compare the difference. Even though I spent about 5 years in Texas the only person I came across that made heavenly homemade biscuits would not tell me the recipe…a family secret. Oh well, thanks to the internets/tubes I can find one myself.

I also experimented with cutting them out. I don’t have a large round cookie cutter, and I wasn’t about to eat bunny rabbit or butterfly shaped biscuits, so I used a glass to cut out the first batch. Because the edge of the glass is not as sharp as a cookie cutter would be, I find they didn’t rise as well b/c pinches the sides together. Today I got creative and use a metal measuring cup to cut them out and they rose mush higher.

Ingredients:
2 Cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Fructose (or sugar)
1 teaspoon Salt
125 grams Butter (I believe that’s 1 American-sized stick of Butter)
3/4 Cup Buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 235°C (450°F).

Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the Butter in smaller chunks and cut together with a fork or pastry cutter until there are just tiny little pea-sized crumbles. Then, add the butter milk and mix in, once it gets too sticky, use your hand to mix.

Spread a teeny tiny bit of flour onto your counter top – I mean a supper thin layer, we don’t want too much to transfer to the biscuits, we just don’t want the dough to stick. Ok, now make the dough into a ball, take your rolling pin, and beat it. Give it about 4-6 whacks and then fold it in half. Do this over and over until you’ve done it 10 times. Then, roll the dough out so that it’s about 2 cm thick (about 3/4 inch). Then, cut the biscuits with a cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or metal measuring cup. You will have some dough left over, fold and whack, fold and whack – 2 times is enough. Then roll it a bit, and cut again, until there’s no dough left.

Place them on a baking sheet really close together (touching sides) so that they rise up and not out. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Serve warm, just don’t burn yourself!

Makes 8-10 biscuits.

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