TENDER AND FLAKY SWEET BISCUITS by Sarah Phillips © 2003 Sarah Phillips baking911.com
Yield: 12, 3-inch or 8, 3x3-inch square biscuits
Biscuits and photo by Kelly CA © baking911.com
Biscuit making is as much a technique as a recipe. It's easy to follow the recipe to the letter but not have the technique needed to master making a flaky, tender biscuit. When not done right, a hard, dry hockey puck of a biscuit is the result. Making my Tender and Flaky Sweet Biscuit Recipe will help you perfect your biscuit making skills. Biscuit making takes practice and time; don't be upset if your first trials are lopsided, don't rise as high as you hoped or are dry and not flaky. But, once you have mastered the steps you will be able to male consistent, flaky and tender biscuits.
Biscuits are usually leavened with baking powder, making them part of the Quick-Bread Category. Quick-breads encompass a large family of familiar recipes -- loaves, as well as muffins, scones, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, crepes and more -- The name "quick" in a quick-bread's title, is derived from the fact that they are mainly leavened with baking soda and/or baking powder, both chemical leaveners. They are quick-acting and allow the bread to begin rising the moment you add the wet ingredients with the dry. On the other hand, yeasted bread requires a lengthy fermentation, measured in hours.
The most popular way to prepare biscuits is much like making pie pastry where the solid fat, such as stick butter or shortening, also known as shorteners, is “cut into” the flour and dry ingredients. This results in a flaky texture. The purpose of cutting fat into the flour is to break up the fat and expose more surface area so it can be in contact with a greater amount of flour particles.
QUICK-BREAD HELP
Kelly CA: Prettiest and flakiest biscuit I ever made. It's a GREAT recipe!
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold or vegetable shortening, room temperature.
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (spoon into measuring cup and level to rim)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on the tops of the biscuits
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (or more if needed) heavy cream, cream, half and half or whole milk, cold or plus extra for brushing the tops of the biscuits for a golden brown color.
NOTE: Brushing instead with a thin coat of melted butter promotes darker browning.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat the oven and prepare the baking pans: Position oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Use a clean, ungreased baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl blend dry ingredients: combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Sarah Says: "Cutting in" the shortening or fat means cutting the cold fat into small bits in the flour and dry ingredients until it resembles small peas.
3. "Cut in" the butter into the flour mixture: Cut cold stick butter into small, evenly sized pieces and refrigerate it for 30 minutes or freeze it for 10 minutes until cold.
Sarah Says: To cut butter into small pieces, equal in size, cut a cold, unwrapped stick of butter in half horizontally and then in half vertically. Stack the butter strips in its original shape. Cut butter along the one tablespoon mark as indicated on the wrapper.
If using shortening, use tablespoon size amounts. There's no need to chill it beforehand.
Sprinkle the chilled butter over the flour and toss with a fork. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a Bench Scraper, two knifes (in a scissor motion) or a pastry blender until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. With your fingertips press the butter into the flour so it forms large flakes. Continue until the flour looks shaggy and the butter pieces are evenly distributed throughout. You should have pea size and small size lumps of fat. If the butter starts to get greasy, it is melting and getting too soft, chill the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes before proceeding.
4. Drizzle a small amount of the heavy cream over the dry ingredients while at the same time tossing with a fork. Reach down into the bottom of the bowl with the fork to work in the liquid before adding more. Repeat until the dough starts to look clumped together and sticky. You may need more or less milk; it's ok if you do.
Stop mixing when the dough reaches this look. You may not need all of the liquid.
5. Turn the dough out onto an unfloured work surface or silpat mat. Gently press the dough together with your fingertips. When you gather the dough together, it will barely stick together. Knead the dough so it comes together better, but not so much that the dough becomes too damp. I didn't add any flour to the work surface; it fell out of the dough during kneading.
6. Knead the dough 30 times, no more: kneading or manipulation of the dough, which involves mixing, kneading and folding into layers of fat and flour, gives a layered and flaky crumb. The dough must be kneaded sufficiently to develop enough gluten to obtain the desired flaky texture.
To knead: First, bring the dough together with both hands by pressing it together. Then, fold dough in half and press. Do not add more flour to the kneading surface. As you knead, turn the dough a quarter turn each time. Repeat previous step and this one together, 30 times. The dough should be soft and slightly elastic, but not sticky or dry. Be careful -- overkneading toughens the biscuits.
7. After the kneading, the dough will be cohesive and slightly bumpy. Pat into a ball. If I cut a cross section of the ball, it would have flaky layers inside.
8. Pat or roll the dough to about a 1/2-inch thickness for tea biscuits (3/4-inch for shortcakes). Cut dough with a 3-inch cutter: Use one with a sharp edge to make a clean cut. Start at one edge of the dough and keep the cuts close to each other to prevent a lot of scraps. (Scraps do not rise as high as the original dough does). Cut straight through the dough, don't twist. This helps to make a high rising biscuit because it doesn't seal the edges of the biscuit from the twisting action, allowing it to rise freely. Remove scraps.
9. Lift cut-out biscuit dough gently with your fingertips, trying not to distort the circle and place on an UNGREASED or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Place close together for a softer side and for a crustier biscuit place 1- to 1 1/2 inches apart (for 1-inch thick). Some biscuits will get distorted in shape if they are too close together. Try not to move the bisuit dough around too much, as you don't want to end up pinching the sides of the dough together when you do, resulting in compact, less tender biscuits. Brush the tops with milk(golden brown color) and sprinkle with sugar. (Brushing instead with a thin coat of melted butter promotes darker browning.)
If you have scraps, stack them one on top of each other and roll with a rolling pin. They will not rise as high as the original biscuits, but they will be good.
10. Place biscuits in oven and immediately reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees F. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes. Bake until the tops are just lightly browned (top photo) and the bottoms (bottom of lower photo) are a slightly darker color. The biscuits should triple in height and rise to about 1 1/2-inches. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature on a wire cake rack.
The biscuits should be lightly browned on the bottom.
VARIATION
To make biscuits for Variation: Strawberry Shortcake
Pat the pastry dough into a square, 6- x 6-inches, preferably 3/4-inch thick. Cut the square into quarters. Place biscuits on an UNGREASED baking sheet and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Remove and let cool on a wire cake rack.
STORAGE
Biscuits stale quickly, so store any leftovers as soon as they cool in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day. They will be harder than the day before. Reheat by placing them on an ungreased cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes; watch carefully so they don't burn.
Biscuits can be frozen, either partially or fully baked for no longer than 2 months. To freeze fully baked biscuits, cool them to room temperature and immediately place in plastic freezer bags, pushing out as much air as possible. To thaw, let biscuits sit at room temperature about one hour, unwrap and reheat in an oven.
To freeze partially baked biscuits, make the dough and bake only until the biscuit has risen but isn't beginning to color. Remove from the oven and cool, then wrap and freeze. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and finish baking the biscuits until the tops are golden.
To freeze biscuit dough, prepare and cut the biscuits according to the recipe directions. However, be aware that they won't rise as high when baked because the leaveners become weaker the longer they are stored. Freeze uncovered on a cookie sheet for about 1 to 2 hours, then place in freezer bags or stack in an airtight container with a piece of waxed paper between each biscuit. Cover and freeze for up to four weeks. Thaw biscuits unwrapped at room temperature, about an hour. Bake in a preheated 425 degrees F oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.
NOTES
Biscuits can be made in many ways, but are generally are prepared in a certain way so the gluten protein in flour is not developed and the result is a tender and flavorful recipe.
Temperature is important when making biscuits. The fat must be well-chilled and the liquid, usually heavy cream or milk, used to make the dough must also. Chilled ingredients minimize gluten development. After the fat is worked in, cold heavy cream is added and the recipe is mixed just to blend the dry and moist ingredients until the biscuit dough holds together. The dough is quickly kneaded, rolled out and biscuits are cut from the dough with a biscuit or cookie cutter.
The dough is baked in a preheated 425 degree F oven that is lowered to 350 degrees F when they are placed in the oven. I found that the initial high heat causes the biscuit dough to rise quickly and the lower heat allows them to bake more slowly so they are tender and moist and don't harden. Biscuits are meant to be eaten or served right away.
Sarah Says: When selecting a milk product for making the biscuits with, heavy cream is preferred. It contains the more fat (36 to 40%) than cream (30 to 36%), half and half (10 to 12%), and whole milk (8%) giving a flakier texture and more vibrant taste to biscuits. Baking911 InDepth™: The Pantry - Dairy Products
Shortening makes for flakier biscuits than butter, but butter imparts a better taste. Fats contribute to the tenderness (shortness) and especially flakiness of pastry. Pure fats, such as shortening and lard, produce to flakier pastry than those that contain water such as butter. Pastry is often a trade-off between flavor and texture, much of which comes from the fat in the recipe. Some bakers use both butter and shortening to capture the best qualities of each, but I prefer to use all butter because of its better taste.
Fats contribute to the flakiness and tenderness of pastry by being layered in between sheets of thin dough. It can also be cut in or rubbed into the flour as pea-sized shapes before the final dough is made. The fat melts during baking, leaving air spaces. When placed in the oven, the flour starches set around the fat, leaving a layer or space when the fat melts which is reabsorbed back into the dough. The longer the fats take to melt in the oven, the more well defined the air cells. The melting point of shortening is higher than that of butter, and it stays solid longer. As a result, it forms better flaky pastry, but without the butter's wonderful flavor.
Cold butter or fats and the flakiness of the pastry are intricately connected. Because butter has such a low melting point, it must be well-chilled to ensure that it can withstand being rolled and handled without melting to produce flakiness. Butter that is too soft surrounds the flour particles rather than forming spaces, and the final texture of the pastry is flat and greasy.
Text by Sarah Phillips; Photos by Sarah Phillips and Elizabeth Eswein
Adapted from Baking 9-1-1, by Sarah Phillips, Simon and Schuster, 2003.
