How to Spice Up Ordinary Biscuit Mix
by BarrettTwining in Cooking > Breakfast
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How to Spice Up Ordinary Biscuit Mix
I make a lot of biscuits, like a lot. And after making them 100's of times I have learned a lot of tips and tricks to make even biscuits from a box taste like they were made by a 5-star chef. So today I am going to share some of them with you guys! Enjoy!
Buttermilk
If you only use one tip from my whole thing it should be this. This is what most restaurant's like Cracker Barrel use. That is why they are called buttermilk biscuits or buttermilk pancakes, because they use buttermilk instead of regular milk. What is buttermilk? According to Wikipedia "Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream; however, most modern buttermilk is cultured" It is commonly available at most grocery stores and pretty cheap. It is thicker than milk with a runny yoghurt consistency. So replacing the milk in your mix or recipe with buttermilk will help give the biscuits flavor to avoid bland-tasting biscuits.
Preparation + Mixing
First, cut the butter or vegetable shortening into small pieces.
Next, mix your dry ingredients with the cut up butter. This is where you can have your kids help, as you want to use your hands to squish the butter chunks in with the flour/mix, when done they should be about pea size but there should still be chunks, they should NOT be fully mixed in. I also like to add 1tsp of salt here because most mixes dont have enough (in my opinion) .
Now add in the buttermilk and mix (silicone spatulas work great) until it is about the consistency in the picture with the spatula, it is ok that it's crumbly.
Forming the Biscuits
First, lightly flour the surface you will be using.
Next dump out the dough on to the counter and try to flatten it until it is about the thickness of your hand. Now fold it in half, if it crumbles just stick it back together. Once you have folded it, flatten it out again and fold it in the opposite direction. This is what will give the biscuits their layers, a step commonly overlooked by home cooks. Repeat this until the dough is no longer crumbly.
Now, flatten/roll out the dough until it is slightly thicker than your hand and get your cutter. When cutting the biscuits push straight down and lift the cutter straight out, twisting the cutter "seals" the edges and prevents them from rising well.
Once cut place them on your baking pan, I found out if you put a drying rack on your baking pan and put the biscuits on that it prevents the bottoms from getting too brown, so if you are like me and dont like the bottoms that's a good thing to try.
Enjoy!
Cook them at the suggested temp and when the tops turn brown they are ready to be eaten!
Pro-tip: Biscuits taste great with salted butter on top!
If you have any other questions or tips to share please put them in the comments, I would love to read them!
-Happy Baking, Barrett