The answer to dry, dense biscuits? Make them wet. Really, really wet. Because if you take a suspiciously
moist batter and put it in a hot oven, you get steam, and your biscuits puff up
hot and dewy inside. Bakewise author Shirley Corriher
teaches us how to pull it off: After pinching together the dry ingredients with
a bit of shortening (or butter or lard, for you purists),
you stir in cream and buttermilk until it looks like cottage cheese. “It should be a wet mess,” Corriher says. So even if it’s humid or your spooned-and-leveled cups of flour were more loaded than Corriher’s, you’ll still be okay—because you just keep pouring and stirring until it looks like something that couldn’t possibly stand up and become a biscuit.
you stir in cream and buttermilk until it looks like cottage cheese. “It should be a wet mess,” Corriher says. So even if it’s humid or your spooned-and-leveled cups of flour were more loaded than Corriher’s, you’ll still be okay—because you just keep pouring and stirring until it looks like something that couldn’t possibly stand up and become a biscuit.
What keeps the biscuits from spilling all over is
this fun step: You plop your batter (from an ice cream scoop!) into a pie plate
full of flour, then toss it around and let the flour fall through your fingers,
until you’re left with just a lump of dough bound together by a thin skin of
flour. Then you roll them into your buttered cake pan, nudging them up against
each other, so none has a chance to fall flat. They get steamy, soft middles
while the tops and outer edges turn coppery and crisp.
They’re squat little puffs you’ll want to grab from
a basket passed over fried chicken or bacon
and eggs. Though it’s certainly not needed, feel free to spread them with butter
(or corn
butter), or pour gravy all over them.
Makes 12 to 14 biscuits
Butter for greasing or nonstick
cooking spray
2 cups (9 ounces/255g) spooned and
leveled self-rising flour (preferably low-protein southern U.S. flour like White
Lily)
¼ cup (1.8 ounces/50g) sugar (or
less, if you prefer your biscuits less sweet)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup (1.6 ounces/45g)
shortening
⅔ cup (160ml) heavy
cream
1 cup (240ml) buttermilk, or
enough for dough to resemble cottage cheese (if you are not using low-protein
flour, it will take more than 1 cup)
1 cup (4.5 ounces/125g)
all-purpose flour, for shaping
3 tablespoons unsalted butter,
melted, for brushing, plus more butter for serving, if
desired
1 Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C) and arrange a shelf
slightly below the center of the oven. Butter an 8- or 9-inch (20cm or 23cm)
round cake pan or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2 In a large mixing bowl, stir together the self-rising
flour, sugar, and salt. Work the shortening in with your fingers until there are
no large lumps. Gently stir in the cream, then some of the buttermilk, until
dough resembles cottage cheese. It should be a wet mess—not soup, but it should
have the texture of cottage cheese. If you are not using a low-protein flour,
this may require considerably more than 1 cup (240ml) of buttermilk.
3 Spread the plain all-purpose flour (not
self-rising—it will give a bitter taste to the outside of the biscuits) out on a
plate or pie pan. With a medium (2-inch/5cm/#30) ice cream scoop or spoon, place
three or four scoops of dough well apart in the flour. Sprinkle flour over each.
Flour your hands. Turn a dough ball in the flour to coat, pick it up, and gently
shape it into a round, shaking off the excess flour as you work.
Place this biscuit in the prepared pan. Coat each dough ball in the same way and
place each shaped biscuit scrunched up against its neighbor so that the biscuits
rise up and don’t spread out. Continue scooping and shaping until all the dough
is used.
4 Bake until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Brush
with the melted butter. Invert onto one plate, then back onto another. With a
knife or spatula, cut quickly between biscuits to make them easy to remove.
Serve immediately: “Butter ’em while they’re hot.”
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