I am sure that I am adding zero to the conversation here, since there are hundreds of thousands of other buttermilk biscuit recipes out there(according to Google) as I write this, but here is the current version of the buttermilk biscuit that I make for brunch at the restaurant. It's a little richer than some, what with the heavy cream, but I count this as a boon.
 | |
| unimpressive photography of a tasty biscuit |
Yields: 4lbs of biscuits
Time to complete: 45 minutes
Ingredients
Preferment:
None
Soaker:
None
Final Dough:
970g Cake Flour
32g Salt
44g Baking Powder
200g Butter
356g Buttermilk
194g Heavy Cream
32g Salt
44g Baking Powder
200g Butter
356g Buttermilk
194g Heavy Cream
Procedure:
- Mix together all of the dry ingredients, and then cut in the butter. This will involve using a couple of bench scrapers to chop the butter into the flour. I make sure to go particularly fine with this step, since for brunch I use this dough to make tiny little one-bite biscuits, and any larger chunks of butter would take up nearly the whole biscuit, but you may not have to be so vigilant.
- Briefly go through the flour with your hands now and flatten out between your forefinger and thumb whatever larger bits butter you come across. If you feel the butter melting on your fingers, you've squished too hard. You just want to flatten them, and the flour covering the pieces will keep it from melting if you don't go too crazy on it.
- Mix in the wet ingredients. I do this by hand because my batches are huge(nigh on 20 lbs) and I have no tools that would do the job better, but if you have a large and sturdy wooden spoon just do whatever works. The main thing to consider is to avoid overworking this dough as though it were a proper bread. Once the dry stuff is absorbed, and you add a little more moisture if necessary, it is done mixing.
- Slap the dough out on to the countertop and squish it to half an inch high. Now cut out the biscuits. The traditional way to cut the biscuits would be a ring mold, repurposed aluminum can, or a specialized biscuit cutter, but unless you have a use for the inevitable scraps from between the round biscuits I suggest just using your bench scraper to cut out squares. There are probably some southern grandmothers who would be upset by this sacrilege, but I am from New York and I do not care.
- If your biscuits are 2" square, they'll probably take about 17 minutes in a 375F oven based upon the test I just did.
- Eating these while warm would not ruin your day at all.
What to Do With This Bread
Serve as one of the title characters in biscuits and gravy, or next to some collard greens and chicken-fried meat with more gravy, or with butter and jam in the morning. You don't need my help here, you've had biscuits enough times before. Just enjoy your food and the making of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment