I stole this from another blog but I’ve made these quite a few times with some variations of my own and they’ve worked well…
From
the source: A favorite with many whom I've fed over the past decade.
The basic recipe is from Julia Child's cookbook, Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom.
I've since made it hundreds of times with many variations inspired by
notes and recipes by Elizabeth David, Laurie Colwin and Kim Boyce. This
is a very forgiving recipe… I've varied the ratio of flour, liquid and
fat by as much as 25% and have gotten very good results. The original
recipe is below with variations following the instructions.
2 cups flour: 1 1/2 c all purpose + 1/2 c cake or 2c pastry
1 2/3 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar: granulated
3/4 cup: shortening
1 liquid: milk
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
In
a large bowl, work shortening into flour until rough meal (do this by
cutting with knives or rubbing with fingers). Add liquid and with a
spatula fold into the flour mix until well combined but take care to not
overwork the resulting dough. Turn mixture out onto a floured surface
and pat out (or roll with a rolling pin) dough to about 1/2 inch thick
(sprinkle top with flour if too sticky). Fold into thirds like a letter
and repeat (better yet, cut into thirds and stack up - the cut edges rise better). Pat/roll out to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut 2 1/2 inch
biscuits out with a cookie cutter. Press together dough remnants, pat
out, fold once and cut as above. Space 1 inch apart on a greased and
floured baking sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until
lightly browned.
variations…
flour: use up to 1 1/2
cups barley or oat flour; try white whole wheat flour (available from
King Arthur Flour); add 2 heaping tablespoons of raw wheat germ.
baking
powder: the amount Julia Child recommends is a bit on the high side; I
usually use a heaping tablespoon for a double recipe.
sugar: for a
sweeter biscuit, add up to 1/3 cup sugar; can use brown sugar and other
less refined sugars and although I have not tried more fluid sugars
such as honey or maple syrup, there's no reason they should not work
(see below for more information). I prefer to eat my biscuits with honey
so I don't bake it into the product.
shortening: can replace with butter or combine it with some portion of cream cheese.
liquid:
this is where the greatest variation can occur… I have used many
combinations of the following: water, soy milk, almond milk, cow's milk
of all fat levels, yogurt, cream, homemade marmalade, homemade raspberry
jam, homemade pear sauce (think apple sauce), eggs and apricot puree*.
Just vary the amount of liquid to achieve the proper dough consistency.
When marmalade or jam is used, take care to not add too much sugar.
Honey and/or maple syrup can be incorporated into the dough as part of
the liquid component. I once used some leftover sweetened cream
cheese/whip cream topping (great for fruit tart base or dessert
topping)… yummy!
Notes:
It is essential to sift the flour
anywhere from 1-3 times.
To make scones, add 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar and
replace some of the liquid with 1-2 lightly beaten eggs. Other
additives: 1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, dried cranberries, dried
kumquats are my favorite); mini-chocolate chips; 1/2 tablespoon grated
orange/lemon/lime zest.
Apricot puree* can be made by placing ~4-6
oz. dried unsulphured apricots into a oven safe crock. Add water to
cover and cover crock. Bake at low temperature (~300 degrees) for 1-2
hours. When cool enough to handle, mash with spoon for apricot puree.
Biscuits
can be served with honey, jam/marmalade, used for strawberry shortcake
(or other fresh fruit shortcake). A new one for me is beat 8 oz cream
cheese with homemade kumquat/orange/clementine marmalade to taste (start
with 1/3 cup).
Shortcake… mix 2-4 cups of cut up fruit with a
squeeze of lemon/lime (maybe even other citrus) juice (or a spoonful of balsamic vinegar) and a few
tablespoons of sugar. Rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes to
extract the juice. Spoon fruit mix over split biscuits and top with
sweetened whipped cream (or try sweetened cream cheese/whip cream).
post
script… Making these biscuits is how I learned to make pie dough. When
first started, I would use the flour mix to generously coat the (cold)
shortening or butter as I held it in one hand while cutting it with a
butter knife in the other hand. I would continue this until the little
coated balls of butter were the size of peas. Over time, it became
faster to cut the butter into larger chunks and rubbing it into the
flour by hand. To make pie dough, find a good recipe and handle the
ingredients as described, chill dough, roll and fit to pie dish.
-end original
My
current favorite is citrus poppy seed scones:1 tablespoon orange or
lemon zest with 2-4 tablespoons poppy seeds and 1-2 teaspoons ground
cumin (yes it’s weird but cumin is really good with citrus).
A
combination I haven’t tried but have high expectations for is fresh
raspberries and white chocolate chips. Imagine this accompanied by
sweetened whipped cream… yummy :)!
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Note:
I tried a savory Parmesan Garlic biscuit... excellent
For a double batch, use 6 oz. of shredded or grated parmesan cheese and 2-3 large cloves of garlic, finely minced. Bake as described above.
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Note: I used self-rising flour for the very first time yesterday to make cranberry-orange scones (dried cranberries & orange zest). In this case, I was using up some left-over half-and-half from a holiday gathering. The rose beautifully! Better than any biscuits/scones that I made with added baking powder. According to King Arthur flour, the baking powder is much better distributed in self-rising flour and that's what gives a better rise.
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