cooking 101: biscuits

It’s time for round 2 of Cooking 101! First, we covered pizza – a life necessity, I think.

For round 2, I couldn’t think of anything better than homemade biscuits!

I want these Cooking 101 posts to be helpful (for you and for me!). When I first stepped into the kitchen, there was SO much I didn’t know. And I am still a complete novice some days, but I’ve definitely learned some things over the years.

• Don’t overwork the dough. Mix everything just enough that it all comes together, pat or roll it out, and cut. No kneading, no crushing the dough together – this will make them tough and heavy. We want light and fluffy!
• When cutting out your biscuits, if you’re using a biscuit/cookie cutter, do NOT twist it in the dough. Just drop it straight down and bring it straight back up. You want your biscuits to bake up tall, and twisting the cutter can sometimes seal the edges, meaning they won’t rise as much.
• Cold butter, if using butter. Cold buttermilk or cream, depending on what you’re using. Cold eggs, if using eggs. Always, always, always cold.

The hardest thing for me to get used to is how sticky and un-ready biscuit dough looks before patting it out to cut. It really does seem like you need to add more flour or knead it quite a bit, but the less you mess with the dough, the better they’ll be.

This is how dough should look when you’re ready to pat/roll it out and cut into biscuits. I always use a pastry cloth, but you can do this on any floured surface (counter, cutting board, etc).

If you make your own homemade biscuits, what’s your favorite recipe? If you haven’t tried making biscuits from scratch yet….what are you waiting for?!

Here’s some of our favorite biscuit recipes:

• Cream biscuits
• Buttermilk Biscuits with Earl Grey Soaked Raisins
• Homemade Frozen Buttermilk Biscuits
• Lazy Biscuits for Two
• Yogurt Biscuits
• White Cheddar and Rosemary Biscuits

http://www.branappetit.com/