Quickly mixing the dough with a fork reduces gluten formation, resulting in a tender, soft drop biscuit.
Preparing the butter first and reserving it in the refrigerator keeps it cold to avoid unwanted melting.
Traditional drop biscuits require just five ingredients, but with their buttery, salty flavor, and cloud-like bite, the final result tastes anything but ordinary. While they're simple, there are still nearly endless variations from one coveted family recipe to the next, each with intense loyalties and deep-seated tastes and opinions attached. With my hat off to your time-honored recipes and trustworthy techniques, I'm here today to present my own drop biscuit thoughts and a recipe.
Fannie Farmer, of the famed Boston Cooking School, called drop biscuits "emergency biscuits," which is incredibly appropriate considering that all you need to make them is about 25 minutes and a minimally stocked pantry. In fact, because of their speedy nature, they are a valued go-to item even for professional bakers and chefs.
Two Ways to Mix Drop Biscuits
To make them, I start by cutting the butter into lima bean–sized pieces and reserving it in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cold. After mixing my dry ingredients together (flour, salt, and baking powder), I add the butter and work it quickly with my hands, rubbing the butter into the flour just enough. Over-mix, and the result is tough; under-mix, and the result is dry, not tender.
This step can also be done in afood processor, requiring just a few short pulses. Much as when making a scone (which is essentially a biscuit with more sugar and an egg), you want to keep pieces of solid, visible butter in there to give you a tender, rather than dry or chewy, final drop biscuit.
The food processor is a great option when you're working with really large batches of dough, or if you're working in a particularly warm environment. Otherwise, rubbing in the butter by hand gives you more control over the mixing. It also means fewer dishes, which is always a big plus in my world.
After that, I carefully mix in the liquid with a fork to create a dough that's shaggy and moist. The beauty of the drop biscuit is that it requires much less handling than itssuper-flaky cousin, so there's much less risk of overworking the dough and developing too much gluten.
A Simple Ingredients List is Best
Some recipes call for buttermilk, others for milk; since I tend to have whole milk on hand more often, I stay in line with Fannie's "emergency biscuit" philosophy and use a milk-based approach. After all, part of the advantage of these biscuits is how easy they are to throw together with ingredients that most of us have available all the time.
Unlike some recipes,my drop biscuits donotinclude an egg. Although I played around with several variations using egg, it always seemed to make a drop biscuit that was overly spongy and cake-like, rather than soft and tender.
I also experimented with different ratios of heavy cream to milk, but the higher fat content from the cream, although delicious, created a denser final product. In the end, the simple, five-ingredients formula—butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk—yielded the best results.
1 teaspoon (4g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt use half as much by volume or the same weight
4ounces cold unsalted butter (1 stick; 115g), cut into 1/4-inch cubes and refrigerated
3/4cup (180ml) whole milk
Directions
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper; alternatively, grease the baking sheet with butter.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Toss butter into dry ingredients until coated with flour. Working quickly, using your fingers or a pastry blender, rub or cut butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal. Alternatively, add flour mixture and butter to the bowl of a food processor and pulse 2 to 3 times to form pea-sized pieces; transfer to a large bowl.
Add milk and stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together into a slightly sticky, shaggy dough.
For small biscuits, use a teaspoon or a small cookie scoop to mound walnut-sized balls of dough onto prepared baking sheet. For large biscuits, use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to mound balls of dough onto prepared baking sheet.
Bake biscuits until golden brown, about 15 minutes for small biscuits and 20 minutes for large ones. Let cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Special Equipment
Food processor (optional), rimmed baking sheet and wire cooling rack
Drop biscuits have more milk or other liquid added to the dough than rolled biscuits. The dough is moister and cannot be kneaded or rolled; simply drop tablespoons of dough onto the baking sheet. Drop biscuits don't rise as much as other biscuits and they are always coarser in appearance and texture.
Fat aside, a common solution to crumbly biscuits is to cut back on the measured amount of dry ingredients. According to Quaker, you should be scooping flour gently with a spoon instead of sticking your measuring cup directly into the bag, which can lead to compacted mis-measurements.
The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter with a knife or pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk, a little at a time, until dough is moistened. Drop dough by heaping spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet.
When the fat is cut too small, after baking there will be more, smaller air pockets left by the melting fat. The result is a baked product that crumbles. When cutting in shortening and other solid fats, cut only until the pieces of shortening are 1/8- to 1/4-inch in size.
Drop biscuits have a dense, crusty, and crumbly consistency, whereas roll-and-cut biscuits are light, fluffy, and flaky. Since roll-and-cut biscuits hold their shape better and have a fluffier crumb, they'd work best for biscuit sandwiches and as a flaky topping for pot pies or casseroles.
The biscuit mix itself is a simple combination of all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. For light and fluffy biscuits, steer clear of any flour made from 100% hard red wheat; this style is relatively low in starch and high in protein, readily forming gluten in a high-moisture dough.
Buttermilk can produce better results when baking biscuits than using regular milk or cream. Buttermilk is acidic and when it is combined with baking soda, it creates a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas, which causes the dough to rise and gives the biscuits a light and flaky texture.
Buttermilk is used in biscuit-making for its acid and fat content. Its acidity works with the leaveners to help the dough rise, producing a taller and fluffier biscuit. Buttermilk also adds a subtle tang. Cream biscuits are made with heavy cream.
Dr Gadoud said: “Funeral biscuits were biscuits served at or associated with funerals. They were generally two biscuits wrapped up and presented to each person attending the funeral or sent out with the invite to the funeral or afterwards.
Drop biscuits have more liquid and are not kneaded; their texture is more mealy than flaky. What are signs of a well-made biscuit? Rolled biscuits have doubled in size and have a golden brown top and straight, cream-colored sides. Drop biscuits have doubled in size and have golden-brown irregular contours.
Drop biscuits get their name from how they are formed: By spooning the dough and "dropping" it onto the cooking surface, whether it be a baking sheet or straight onto a chicken pot pie. When baked on their own, they take less than 20 minutes in the oven.
While many bowhunters who only use drop-away rests tout their products' superior speed and accuracy, field tests have indicated the difference between Whisker Biscuits and drop-aways is minimal to negligible for most hunting scenarios, losing just a few feet per second and about an inch of drop at longer distances.
Soft dough biscuits as the name suggests are softer and fluffier than their hard dough counterparts. They have higher levels of fat & sweetness and are generally manufactured with the help of a rotary moulding machine.
Introduction: My name is Jeremiah Abshire, I am a outstanding, kind, clever, hilarious, curious, hilarious, outstanding person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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