Tips for Perfect Biscuits
* Make sure your baking powder, baking soda, and/or self-rising flour
are fresh! (see note at end of post)
* Start preheating the oven as soon as you start thinking about making
the biscuits! You want the oven to be completely preheated before the
biscuits go in.
* Prepare your ingredients and tools in advance so that once you get
started, you can work quickly and efficiently: cut your butter in small pieces
and put it back in the fridge, measure out the buttermilk, flour the counter,
get out the biscuit cutter and baking sheet.
* Use very cold butter, keep it in the fridge until you’re ready for
it. Work the butter quickly into the flour so that it doesn’t have a chance to
even think about melting!
* When you add the buttermilk, stir lightly! This can be done simply
with a fork. You just want to get the dough to a point where the flour is all
clumped together, not a smooth dough!
* Knead lightly and minimally. You aren’t kneading this like bread
dough, you are simply finishing the mixing process with your hands. You only
want
to knead a couple of times to finish dispersing the liquid through the
dough. The more you knead, the denser your biscuits will be!
* Even if you use self-rising flour in the dough, dust the counter and
dough with all-purpose flour. Self-rising flour can give the outside of the
biscuits a bitter taste, due to the leavening it contains.
* Don’t pat the dough out too thin. If you want high biscuits, don’t
roll the dough any thinner than 3/4 - 1 inch.
* When cutting biscuits, use a sharp cutter and press straight down and
up. Don’t twist! This was the hardest tip for me to adapt. I have always
twisted the biscuit cutter. But guess what, it makes a difference!
* Place cut biscuits together on the baking sheet so that they are
touching. Again, this is something I have never done. But I found that the
biscuits do rise well and I really enjoy the texture of the soft-sided
biscuits!
* Don’t re-roll the scraps. Since it is best to work the dough as
little as possible, instead of gathering the scraps, re-rolling and cutting
into
biscuits, just form the scraps into biscuit shapes by hand. I usually end up
with scraps to form two extra biscuits. They might look a little funny, but
they rise as well as the others and they taste just as good!
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