Biscuits

[MagicFingers]

Every time I try to make my own, like from Bisquick, they fall apart.
You can't even butter them or pick them up without them crumbling.
I like to eat mine with soppin' syrup style.
How do I make them to keep them from falling apart?
Or does anyone have a good old recipe for them.
Thanks

 

[SweetErika]

With the Bisquick, it sounds like you're not using quite enough milk. Liquid amounts in baking are always just a guide; things like the heat of your kitchen, air humidity and oven temp/variation can make the recipe require more or less liquid. Try adding milk by the tablespoon until your mixture is sticky (but not really wet) and make sure you don't over-stir it. That, or if you're rolling them out, try using less Bisquick or flour to do so, as you may be incorporating too much during that process.

When I use a mix like Bisquick (the reduced fat kind, BTW), I just make drop biscuits (instead of rolling them out) because it's quicker and less messy. They crumble with rougher handling, but stick together perfectly well enough to pick up, cut, doctor up and eat.

Making biscuits from scratch is a whole other animal. With that, you have to be careful about other things to get good results.

 

[sircumvent]

Biscuits, the one thing I know something about. Here's a very easy recipe for Drop Biscuits that SweetErika mentioned above:

2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons fresh baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick butter, softened)
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Coat baking sheet with nonstick spray.

Combine flour, baking powder and butter. Mix until crumbly. Don't overblend.
Add the egg and milk, stir until completely moistened.

Drop the mixture by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheet, then bake for 20 - 25 minutes.




ENJOY!!

 

[sunandshadow]

If any pastry is crumbly, it's either because of lack of moisture, or because of lack of binding. Lack of moisture can be remedied by adding more water or milk, or by cooking for a shorter amount of time. Do not add more oil because oil is too slippery, and while it raises moisture it reduces binding, and doesn't improve taste. If you have something that is both greasy and crumbly you want to reduce oil or other fat and probably substitute with egg or cheese.

 

[emap]

What they said.

I am not going to go find my recipes to give you my biscuits, but I'll give you a hint, biscuits are like cakes and souffles, you have to follow the recipe, if it calls for this much of this, you put that much in, no more no less. It is also crucial that you know how high up you are and the relative moisture level of your area, the news has that or you can check it out from the weather channel, online or off TV. Though generally, if your hair is curling a bit more than normal, it's moist and you want to lower the fluids or add more flour, depends on the recipe. If your hair is flatter than normal it is extra dry and you may want to add a teensy smidgen more fluids.

One more key little thing, you want to match the milk on the recipe with what you have. If you have a recipe for full milk and you have 2%, add a little more butter or margarine. If you have full milk and it calls for 2%, don't add the full amount of butter or margerine.

 

[SweetErika]

One more key little thing, you want to match the milk on the recipe with what you have. If you have a recipe for full milk and you have 2%, add a little more butter or margarine. If you have full milk and it calls for 2%, don't add the full amount of butter or margerine.

I absolutely agree, but IIRC, Bisquick just calls for "milk" (I've always used nonfat or 1% without problems) and it's generally pretty forgiving about amounts (within reason, of course) and substitutions to a certain extent. At least it's forgiving enough that I can leave out most or all of any oil called for in waffle batter and pretty much eyeball the biscuit amounts, just adding a little more mix or milk, if needed.

In my experience, that's NOT true for scratch, and in many cases, rolled, biscuits. Those are much more finicky, and there are definite procedures and recipes that must be used.

 

[sunandshadow]

I usually use bisquick for dumplings, the fluffy kind that go with sauerkraut. (I adore the pillsbury butter-flavor biscuits in the refrigerated can.) So I dunno about biscuits but with dumplings you notice immediately that they are bad unless you add sugar.

 

[emap]

Rolled biscuits actually are not that hard, though there is a definite art to making those. I don't do it very often because they are very easy to muck up.

Though as I recall it, the trick to doing rolled is to get it to just sticky to the touch, so you don't pull much away with a touch. After that, it is very key to not touch it with your hands, floured or wet utensils and for the love of having biscuits, not the counter.

Instead you roll a sheet of paper, waxed or butcher paper is ideal, but printer paper will work if your doing small amounts. Set that down on the counter, lightly sprinkle it with flour, I've been told cake flour is the ideal because it is so light, dollop out a portion of the mix, with the spoon not your hand right into the middle of the paper. Over the dollop you want to place another sheet of paper, you can sprinkle the dollop with flour, but then you have to stop halfway through and resprinkle and that can give you problems.

Probably will unless you don't need to know how to do a good biscuit.

At first just flatten it down with your hands, then take a rolling pin and roll it a few times, not pressing down. When it is to your desired thickness, you peel the paper off, slowly is a good idea. When you have the paper off, you take a cutter, or a glass and press it into the dough, twist the cutter or glass a few times back and forth, then move on to the next spot. After you have as many cut biscuits as you can get, you take a spatula, metal preffered and pry the cut biscuits free. Shouldn't be to hard you floured the bottom.

Repeat as need until you are out of dough. You have rolled biscuits. Rolled isn't very hard if you keep two things in mind, the less contact with your hands, anything oiled or wet and extra flour the better. And, the less rolls you need the better. Cinammon rolls are designed to be rolled, biscuits are not, unless your making the oh so delicious butter rolled, though they have a different recipe.

OK, now it is possible to roll out biscuits without the paper, though that requires more flour and is very easy to muck up. I haven't seen anyone doing them like that since I was but a wee gal.

 

[MagicFingers]

Thanks everyone

My mother used to make buttermilk biscuits from scratch every day back when I was growing up. I loved them, as all good southern boys do. When I asked her to tell us the recipe, she said, "I just take a little of this and some of that and throw it all together, knead it with my hands and throw it in the oven." My brother and I even made them but I don't know what went into them. As emap and erika noted, they were very sticky and messy to make, so I remember that problem. You had to squeeze the dough between your fingers with both hands to get it mixed.

I've been using Pillsbury jumbo style for many years, but now they are $3.00 a can and that's too much, especially when my teenage boys are eating them too! lol

The info about the moisture with milk and butter/shortning - I think that may be the key to my problem. I've tried varying them a little, but with no luck. I thought about adding an egg. That always sounds like a good idea to me. ha - love eggs.
sundandshadow, The thing about moisture vs. binding sounds like the key I'm looking for. Now, if I can only figure out the right amounts...
I've tried whole, 1%, 2% milk and don't remember a difference, but it makes sense that the lower % milk will be thinner.

I'm going to try sircumvent's recipe this weekend and I'll let you know what happens. What happens if I work the dough too much? They always say that but I wonder what it does bad.?
I'll just shape in the drop method. I don't care about perfect round shapes. I know how hard that can be from making Old Fashioned Teacake cookies every Christmas. So I understand about using flour above and below when rolling, etc. That dough is very hard to roll and cut.
Thanks for your help everyone.
good to know there are still some nice people here!
MF

 

[emap]

Rolling the dough flattens it. In the way you see and a way you don't see, most biscuits and breads are alot of air and a little dough. If you roll something vigorously, it loses the air and you get a flat biscuit.

If you look, the same amount if cinnamon rolls is more flour and eggs than biscuits call for, because there is less air in a cinnamon roll. Same with making butter rolled biscuits. Because you have to roll it so much to make it, you lose air.

 

[sunandshadow]

Yeah working the dough too much makes it lose air, and also the er... fibers? molecular structure? anyway it gets aligned and twisted tight which makes it more hard and solid and less elastic after baking. Like the difference between loose wool and wool after mashing it into felt. (This reminds me of my awesome AP physics teacher who gave some physics lessons in the context of "how to homebrew vodka". )

 

[SweetErika]

The problem with working a flour dough is it develops the gluten in the flour. You want a lot of gluten development with bread so it's elastic enough to rise well, but you don't want it with pastries and quick breads, like biscuits, because it will make them chewy and tough, instead of tender and flaky.

You also want to avoid working the dough too much with a traditional biscuit because you want thin layers of fat throughout the dough to make it flaky and rise nicely, instead of flatter and oily. That's why pie crust and similar pastries always call for COLD butter and ingredients, in addition to not working the dough much.

If you don't have a pastry cutter (an oval device with a handle and duller blades of metal), you can use a fork to incorporate your fat into traditional biscuits and stir the dough until it just comes together. You can use your hands, but there's more of a risk of it getting warm and the biscuits not being light and flaky that way.

 

[Bottomlover]

Another thing to be aware of is the kind of flour you use. In the south, biscuit flour is in all of the stores, but I've never seen it in the northern states. It is a softer flour and doesn't have as much protein, so it doesn't form gluten as easily as AP or bread flour. You can try mixing some cake flour with AP flour, but I don't know the proportions.

 

[tammytoodles]

/////////////////

 

[SweetErika]

Another thing to be aware of is the kind of flour you use. In the south, biscuit flour is in all of the stores, but I've never seen it in the northern states. It is a softer flour and doesn't have as much protein, so it doesn't form gluten as easily as AP or bread flour. You can try mixing some cake flour with AP flour, but I don't know the proportions.

"Biscuit flour" sounds like simple pastry flour, maybe with the baking powder already added.

Or you could do what I do and buy Pillsbury biscuits in the freezer section......heehee

Those are expensive, like MF said, and my personal quibble with them is that they're usually full of a bunch of junk, like extra fat, refined ingredients and preservatives.

 

[Bottomlover]

"Biscuit flour" sounds like simple pastry flour, maybe with the baking powder already added.

That would be "self rising biscuit flour". The stuff that is called "biscuit flour" is not as soft as cake flour, but softer than AP. It may very well be the same thing as 'pastry flour".

 

[Noira]

In my experience, that's NOT true for scratch, and in many cases, rolled, biscuits. Those are much more finicky, and there are definite procedures and recipes that must be used.

As the family cook, I entirely and utterly disagree.

This is true with bread, usually...

Sure. Whatever. However, recipes are finicky things. VERY finicky. For one thing, different weather and pressures can effect how things turn out, so if the recipe was intended to work well down south, up in Canada it might not at all, and who knows about in Australia... we frequently modify recipes because they're just not right for us. Yeah, you can follow the recipe to a dime, but cooking is not a "science". Cooking is an art.

I used to follow recipes and found very frequently that something would just taste off or they would flop. There's the chance the writer forgot to transcribe something or your tastes are different. For example, one cookie recipe I used to do as a kid had far too much baking soda in it. I used to follow the recipe to a dime. Every time, they had this disgusting overtaste. Eventually I learned that this wasn't working and threw the book back in the cupboard and developed my own.

Some things are finicky. Bread, definately bread. Follow those to the dime and if it flops, then start modifying. Bread is very finicky...

Biscuits, not so much.

I make biscuits like this. I take around... uh... a third of a cup of butter and a third of a cup of lard. I melt the butter and throw that in the food processor with the lard and about, ummm... around a teaspoon or two of baking powder and some salt. Salt to taste, a teaspoon would work for you finicky people. I just dust some into my hand and throw it in, probably a half teaspoon because that's to taste for me. Ish. WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

Okay, those are mixed together. Then I grab a cup and fill it with water and the flour. I dump in about two cups of flour. Wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... that's me pressing the button for a while.... if this didn't make it thick and crumbly, then add more flour. You want it to be thick and crumbly, making small balls. Then start adding water and pressing the button on and off.

NOTE ON MAKING BISCUITS: you do not want to overbeat them. This makes bad biscuits. Also, another note: lard and butter mixed makes the best. Butter tastes better, lard does a better consistancy, mixing them gets the right balance.

Anyway, don't overbeat, but slowly add water until it balls up into a wad of dough. Then use this.

You can use milk too, if you prefer the flavor. I prefer water.

Anyway, I'm also a fan of my food processor for making biscuits. The pastry blender is also great, and you can use a fork + your hands, no worries.

Okay, I admit it, biscuit making is finicky, but I've never touched a recipe for them and I've done just fine. I think I've just got a magic touch for food. I kill gardens, but I can cook from scratch. Alas...

Anyway, that's how I make them. I might seem like I'm claiming mine's the only way, and it is--for me. It's bloody easy and everyone's always been happy with my results. But other recipes might be great too. I've just never tried. This has been technique-happy-hour with Noira! Wooo.

Maybe next time I'll post about how to make cheap chili. Dang, now I'm hungry. >< You guys made me hungry.

Good luck with your cooking endevours! I hope you get a good batch soon!

(oh yeah, you can also make your own 'biscuit mix if you mix up the baking soda, flour, and butter/lard and store that in your fridge or pantry... you just have to add water/milk and butter if it suits you then and it stores pretty well. Much cheaper, too.)

 

[SweetErika]

As the family cook, I entirely and utterly disagree.

This is true with bread, usually...

Sure. Whatever. However, recipes are finicky things. VERY finicky. For one thing, different weather and pressures can effect how things turn out, so if the recipe was intended to work well down south, up in Canada it might not at all, and who knows about in Australia... we frequently modify recipes because they're just not right for us. Yeah, you can follow the recipe to a dime, but cooking is not a "science". Cooking is an art.

I used to follow recipes and found very frequently that something would just taste off or they would flop. There's the chance the writer forgot to transcribe something or your tastes are different. For example, one cookie recipe I used to do as a kid had far too much baking soda in it. I used to follow the recipe to a dime. Every time, they had this disgusting overtaste. Eventually I learned that this wasn't working and threw the book back in the cupboard and developed my own.

Some things are finicky. Bread, definately bread. Follow those to the dime and if it flops, then start modifying. Bread is very finicky...

Biscuits, not so much.

I make biscuits like this. I take around... uh... a third of a cup of butter and a third of a cup of lard. I melt the butter and throw that in the food processor with the lard and about, ummm... around a teaspoon or two of baking powder and some salt. Salt to taste, a teaspoon would work for you finicky people. I just dust some into my hand and throw it in, probably a half teaspoon because that's to taste for me. Ish. WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

Okay, those are mixed together. Then I grab a cup and fill it with water and the flour. I dump in about two cups of flour. Wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... that's me pressing the button for a while.... if this didn't make it thick and crumbly, then add more flour. You want it to be thick and crumbly, making small balls. Then start adding water and pressing the button on and off.

NOTE ON MAKING BISCUITS: you do not want to overbeat them. This makes bad biscuits. Also, another note: lard and butter mixed makes the best. Butter tastes better, lard does a better consistancy, mixing them gets the right balance.

Anyway, don't overbeat, but slowly add water until it balls up into a wad of dough. Then use this.

You can use milk too, if you prefer the flavor. I prefer water.

Anyway, I'm also a fan of my food processor for making biscuits. The pastry blender is also great, and you can use a fork + your hands, no worries.

Okay, I admit it, biscuit making is finicky, but I've never touched a recipe for them and I've done just fine. I think I've just got a magic touch for food. I kill gardens, but I can cook from scratch. Alas...

Anyway, that's how I make them. I might seem like I'm claiming mine's the only way, and it is--for me. It's bloody easy and everyone's always been happy with my results. But other recipes might be great too. I've just never tried. This has been technique-happy-hour with Noira! Wooo.

Maybe next time I'll post about how to make cheap chili. Dang, now I'm hungry. >< You guys made me hungry.

Good luck with your cooking endevours! I hope you get a good batch soon!

(oh yeah, you can also make your own 'biscuit mix if you mix up the baking soda, flour, and butter/lard and store that in your fridge or pantry... you just have to add water/milk and butter if it suits you then and it stores pretty well. Much cheaper, too.)

Yep, that's definitely just as simple and imprecise as dumping some bisquick into a bowl, adding some milk and stirring, adjusting the amounts until it's about the right consistency.

I'm not how one can disagree with personal experience, but sure, whatever...

It's my personal experience that a certain amount of leavening agent must be used, or the biscuits won't rise. Too much, and they'll likely rise too much and taste awful.

It's my personal experience that the fat must be "cut" into the dry ingredients (which is what your food processor blades are doing). It doesn't work to melt and pour it in or just mix everything together in one big clump.

It's my personal experience that humidity and temperature has an impact on the dough, and how much liquid it needs.

It's my personal experience that using too much flour to roll the dough out and over-rolling results in crappy biscuits.

It my personal experience that I don't really have to think of any of the above when making drop biscuits from bisquick.

THAT is what I was referring to when I said scratch and rolled biscuits are more finicky and require more precise measurements [vs. bisquick/mix biscuits], just to clarify. I wasn't saying or implying recipes and procedures needed to be followed to the letter to get good results, just that one method requires less precision and procedure than the other, in my experience (and, well, the experience of millions of other people). Bisquick and scratch biscuits are different, and they require different procedures, that's all.

 

[MagicFingers]

Well

I made a batch Saturday using the recipe up at the top of this thread.
They were the worst tasting ones I've ever had and they crumbled when trying to sop up syrup. This was with 2 year old all-purpose flour.
(Don't worry, I threw away the 5 and 9 year old stuff I found in the back of my cupboard.)

So, I bought some new flour and tried again Monday. The taste was good today but they still crumbled too much.
I am using vegetable shortning instead of butter. Since it is in a tub, I scoop some out and melt it slightly to measure it accurately to 1/2 cup. Is either melting or not using butter my problem? Maybe if I used soft butter...?
I am using whole milk right now and good baking powder.

I don't have a food processor and I'm not sure how they work. I have a drink blender but I cannot imagine trying to mix biscuit batter in it!
We used to have lard back in the south but I have not see it out he on the west coast.
obtw, I'm in So.Cal, near sea level so there should be no problem with altitude or cold weather, or climate that is too dry or wet.
I'm GOING to figure this thing out! got to work on that binding thing.

Hey, if anyone wants to make good pancakes, try this:
Use the batter in a box that says to add water, but use milk instead.
Add a generous squirt of lemon juice and a couple of tsps of baking powder.
Makes, light, tasty pancakes.

Noira, you mentioned baking soda - yeah, I had a problem with a recipe that used too much of that. Cutting it in half did wonders for the taste.

 

[sunandshadow]

lard and butter mixed makes the best. Butter tastes better, lard does a better consistency, mixing them gets the right balance.

That's one of the things I've noticed about cooking in general - it almost always tastes better to mix two or three butters/oils than to just use one. Rice for example is much better with 2/3 margarine and 1/3 butter than with all of one or the other. Most things involving vegetables and oil improve when some of the oil is olive (the 'dirty' kind from black olives, not the virgin kind). But using all olive oil tends to give people difficulty digesting.

 

[Etaski]

Hm, from scratch I always used cold butter and a wire pastry blender (also multi-tasks as an egg slice/dicer for egg salad ) to get the "coarse mealy texture" in the dough before adding the liquid, kneading a bit, and rolling it out.

Although I see another recipe using solid vegetable shortening and buttermilk; says the shortening shouldn't be melted and should also be cut into the dry ingredients before any liquid is added.

Although I have another offering if anyone's interested; these biscuits have never been crumbly; always soft, cohesive and filling (and popular with my friends and family), and not so finicky as cutting solid fats into flour...although not "low fat" in the least. But simple.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup mashed, cooked sweet potato, yam, or winter squash
Canned is perfectly acceptable, as long as any syrup is drained first. In fact, it is much easier; I've only cooked my own once and I'm not sure it was worth the time or effort...

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 450 F.

In one bowl, combine cream and sweet potato
In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.
Add wet mixture on top of dry.
Stir with fork until dough forms a sticky ball.
On a floured surface, knead lightly 5 to 6 times. (Dough will absorb any further needed flour)
On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to a rough 8-inch square.
Cut dough into 16 squares. Place on greased baking sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on wire rack; serve warm or room temp.

It truly tastes like biscuit, not yam, but you get this gorgeous golden-orange color and a moist bread, plus extra Vitamin A!

 

[SweetErika]

I made a batch Saturday using the recipe up at the top of this thread.
They were the worst tasting ones I've ever had and they crumbled when trying to sop up syrup. This was with 2 year old all-purpose flour.
(Don't worry, I threw away the 5 and 9 year old stuff I found in the back of my cupboard.)

So, I bought some new flour and tried again Monday. The taste was good today but they still crumbled too much.
I am using vegetable shortning instead of butter. Since it is in a tub, I scoop some out and melt it slightly to measure it accurately to 1/2 cup. Is either melting or not using butter my problem? Maybe if I used soft butter...?
I am using whole milk right now and good baking powder.

I don't have a food processor and I'm not sure how they work. I have a drink blender but I cannot imagine trying to mix biscuit batter in it!
We used to have lard back in the south but I have not see it out he on the west coast.
obtw, I'm in So.Cal, near sea level so there should be no problem with altitude or cold weather, or climate that is too dry or wet.
I'm GOING to figure this thing out! got to work on that binding thing.

Hey, if anyone wants to make good pancakes, try this:
Use the batter in a box that says to add water, but use milk instead.
Add a generous squirt of lemon juice and a couple of tsps of baking powder.
Makes, light, tasty pancakes.

Noira, you mentioned baking soda - yeah, I had a problem with a recipe that used too much of that. Cutting it in half did wonders for the taste.

I think the warm fat is at least one of your main problems. Most biscuit recipes call for cutting in COLD butter or room temp. shortening (save yourself a lot of hassle and buy the crisco that comes in the sticks, so you can just cut off the portion you need and cut it up into little chunks easily!). I've never heard of, or seen, good biscuits call for warm/melted fat.

THIS RECIPE from Paula Deen of Food Network fame got a ton of glowing reviews, only has 3-4 ingredients (you can substitute flour and baking powder for self-rising flour...just find the substitution via google) and people say it's foolproof. If you can't get your recipe down by cutting in cold butter or room-temp crisco, give it a shot.


Here's another recipe w/ good instructions from Alton Brown. He tells you how much to mix and everything.

And you might want to consider splitting the biscuits, pouring the syrup on and eating them with a fork. I do this when I eat them with preserves because they DO have a tendency to crumble and get all messy when something sticky is on them. I do the same with syrup and cornbread (plate and fork vs. picking it up).