OK to be fair there not lethal. But they are usually either half done or brick hard. I've read that flour has changed a great deal over the past couple years.

What flour do you use? What is your recipe for great biscuits?

Thanks.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), July 25, 2001

Answers

Plain old unbleached flour from the grocery or Amish food store.

I remember my recipe by thinking of it this way: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 3/4.

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

4 tablespoons butter (softened but still firm)

3/4 cup milk

Dump flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender, two knives or work into the flour by rubbing between your fingers. Make a well in the center of the flour mix and dump in the milk, stirring only enough to moisten the dry ingredients. Drop into lightly greased cake pan; or turn out onto floured board and knead very gently just a few times, then pat to 1/2 inch thick and cut with a cutter or glass. Place with sides not touching on cookie sheet for crisper buscuits, or in cake pan with sides touching for more tender ones. Bake at 375 degrees until tops are golden brown.

If you are going to keep the biscuits a day or so, you might want to brush the tops with butter as they come out of the oven to help keep them from getting too crunchy.

I use this same recipe for shortcakes, adding 1/4 cup sugar with the flour and increasing the butter to 6 tablespoons.

Good luck!

(Next I 'spose you'll want to know how to make cream gravy to go over 'em!) ;o)

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), July 25, 2001.

Polly, your recipe reminds me of the way my grandma use to make biscuits. She kept a bowl of the dry ingredients always in her refrigerator and every morning would make a well in the center, add the wet ingr. and mix with some of the dry. Take out the dough and then put the dry ingr. she didn't use back in the fridg. for the next day. My dad always said hers were the best biscuits he ever tasted and she was his mother in law! I wonder if keeping the flour cold had something to do with it?

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), July 25, 2001.

Polly, creamy gravy recipe would be great, can I get it? Mary

-- Mary (marwel@microserve.net), July 25, 2001.

Posted already to the same q on CS, but I'll repost here:

I have no clue what the secret is to making biscuits. Oddly enough, I USED to make great biscuits. Then stopped while I was a yuppy money grubber married to an East Indian who knew nothing about what biscuits were. I tried a batch after a 20 year hiatus, and the dog wouldn't even eat them.

OK, I lied. The dog DID eat the biscuits (though the kid wouldn't touch them anymore after the first bite). It was the alleged French Bread (rose not at all, came out of the oven the size of breadsticks and hard enough to bludgeon diamonds into powder) that the dog was wise enough not to eat (or leastways not desperate enough to leave alone)

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), July 25, 2001.

Hi Mary!! Good gravy is easy to make if you use the following proportions; 2 tablespoons fat (meat grease/drippings) to 2 tablespoons flour to 2 cups milk. Remove cooked meat from skillet and estimate the amount of drippings in the pan. Put pan over medium low heat. For every two tablespoons, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour into the pan and stir in thoroughly with a whisk or (my favorite) a pancake turner type spatula. Let flour brown slightly, then slowly stir in the 2 cups of milk for each 2 tablespoons of drippings and flour you used. Stir slowly and thoroughly, taking care to cover all areas of the skillet (why I like the pancake turner - covers lots of space and also scoops up any stuck meat crispies into the gravy). You may need to turn the heat down a bit. Stop cooking and remove from heat when gravy is just a bit thinner than you would like, it will thicken upon sitting. You can also make large batches in a Dutch oven rather than a skillet - especially good for feeding a crowd sausage gravy and biscuits! Good luck, and good eating!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), July 25, 2001.

I won a busciut baking contest about 10 years ago. First place! My only claim to fame. Here is my "secret" to good light biscuits. It is not what type of flour you use but not to use too much flour and not to work the dough anymore than you have to and then with a light touch. If the bisucits are hard, it is not because of the flour you used, but because you either put in too much flour (should only be enough to hold together) or you overworked the dough. NEVER knead it more than 7 or 8 times. You will see what I mean if the next time you make biscuits you bake the ones from the re-rolled dough seperate and compare them to the other first batch. Also, you have bake them in a farily hot oven (around 375 degrees) only until light golden brown and watch the bottoms! Over baking will get them hard also. Also, when you bake the biscuits you should not bake them on a cookie sheet but in a cake type pan (either round or rectangle) with the sides almost touching. This also makes for better baking and softer bisuits. I don't really have a recipe I can share because I don't measure but I use self-rising flour, lard, salt, and milk. Lard is your secret weapon for flaky biscuits. Butter or shortening just can't do it!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 26, 2001.

My wife (and me and my daughter) Thank you. She admitted to over kneading the dough. After reading your post she had a light bulb moment. Her batch this morning was not only purty but very tasty.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), July 26, 2001.

Cold flour gives a better rise when the cold air bubbles expand in the hot oven. This is an old trick, works for pie crust too. [keeps the fat in layers]

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), July 30, 2001.

I have no answer to this post.I am using this dormant forum to learn how to make paragraph spacing. I was told just hit the key or space bar twice, I've tried that and still have my posting coming out stuck together. I am getting ready to throw this monitor over the bank of the nearest river . It by some chance someone comes to this forum and see some fool (me ) trying to learn posting in paragraphs techniques.And they know how.Please try to explain it in detail so I may learn to post in paragraphs , and give others the illusionary affect that I contain a small portion of intelligence. Well that enough now to post this and see if I was able to space my paragraphs.

-- xxxxx (ggg@spce.com), September 09, 2002.

It didn't work .soI'll try again. It didn't work so I'll try again. It didn't wotk so I'll try again .This is goin to lead me to needed theropy.

-- xxxxx (ggg@spce.com), September 09, 2002.

I'll try one more time.I'll try one more time i'll tryone more time

-- xxxxx (ggg@spce.com), September 09, 2002.