Since I moved to Los Angeles nearly a decade ago, people return home to South Carolina have asked me what I miss most to live in the south. They usually expect me to quote less traffic (it really isn't that bad here) or better behavior (you'll be surprised …). But the answer I give every time is easy: biscuits. I miss good biscuits!
With some exceptions, it is difficult to find the biscuits I love outside the south. And so, like a lot of bakeries, I had to go back to my kitchen to satisfy my desires.
I'm not always successful: it's easy to make a good biscuit, but it's hard to make a great one. What is why I was so excited as the legendary council of Biscuit Baker Erika shared her best biscuit tips with King Arthur a few years ago. This article by Vonnie Williams is filled with excellent tips, but buried in the end is a genius tip of the biscuits that broke every rule I thought I knew about making biscuits. Erika advises cutting biscuit circuits in dough – and then departure the dough around the scrap in place until after baking. Once baked, you can pull the biscuits (and gather in the remaining pieces).
The reason for this unique baking method? Keeps extra soft and fluffy biscuits around the edges, instead of exposing them to brown and fresh in the oven. In her cooking book, Still get up, Erika includes this method in its recipe for attractive biscuits, also referring to them as “sheet biscuits”, though the method will work with any biscuit recipe.
Photo and styling of food by Liz Neily
I tried it with ours Butter biscuitsAnd I could immediately see the difference. I have baked some individually cut biscuits and some biscuits surrounded by dough pieces. The separate biscuits had dried, dried edges that stiffen in the oven, while the biscuits that baked in the dough had super soft edges that reminded me of some pillow milk bread. And as an increased bonus, keeping the cut biscuits surrounded by the dough prevented them from falling into the oven, so they remained proudly and long.
Part of what I want about this method is that it repeats ultra soft, fluffy biscuits with which I grew up in Carolinas. While I like a laminated biscuit, laminated with nearly fried edges and ultra high layers, they are not the classic southern version I want, which are more like bread than pastes. But thanks to Erika and her baking tips, the house is just a bag of flour And some sticks of butter away.
Cover the photo and styling food from Liz Neily.
