Biscuit Basics

Well, here it is, Mark Bittman's biscuit recipe from How to Cook Everything.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (please use a light flour like White Lily, especially if you're a beginner; it makes all the difference)
• 1 scant teaspoon salt (use half if you're adding bacon
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 5 teaspoons cold butter (or as little as 2 if you're watching the fat intake)
• 7/8 cup plain yogurt or buttermilk (yogurt will give you a slightly sour, more crisp biscuit)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees, and fry up some bacon if you're going to use it. Crumble the bacon into very small pieces and plaace in the fridge to chill. Also grate about half a cup of cheddar if you're going to use that.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and cut in the flour. You can use a food processor, but I find for one batch it's not worth the cleanup. Just use your fingers, making sure your hands are cold. Press the flour into the butter, working quickly so the butter doesn't melt. You' want to break the butter up enough to make it look like rolled oats are floating in the flour. You're not trying to get the flour to become completely uniform in consistency; by the time you've done that, the butter will have melted. The idea is to have small chunks of butter no bigger than peas floating throughout the flour. Add cheese and bacon at this point.

Use a large spoon or spatula to stir in the yogurt or buttermilk. Dig to the bottom of the bowl and turn the flour over, cutting through the dough occassionally. Stir as little as possible until the dough barely forms a ball. Less is more here, as you can tell by this photo. The dough is barely holding itself together. That's good.

Dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead no more than 10 times. It might stick a little, but try not to add more than a sprinkle of flour if any.

Press into a 3/4 inch thick rectangle and cut into rounds or squares. I like to just cut the dough into triangles because I don't want to re-roll the dough left over when I cut circles. Every time you re-work dough, the gluten in the dough gets stronger and chewier. Not good for biscuits.

A few more tips: when you cut, whether it's with a knife or a cookie cutter, press straight down into the dough and lift straight up. Don't twist the cutter or drag your knife. Doing so will keep the dough from rising in the oven. Place on an ungreased baking sheet about an inch and a half from each other. The steam from the biscuits help each other to rise, so don't put them too far from each other.

You can freeze the dough on a tray, then put the frozen triangles in an airtight container. I'm not sure how long they'll keep, but I assume at least a month or two. You can put the frozen ones directly in a 400-450 degree toaster oven for about 20 minutes, or until the top of the biscuit is browned and firm.

The tips in this post also apply to making the scones below, so happy eating!