Biscuits

In my last post regarding biscuits I mentioned that my first effort at making them produced a pleasantly palatable but not quite perfect biscuit. My second attempt eliminated my “burned bottoms” problem. This was accomplished by placing a piece of aluminum foil on the shelf below the baking pan. But, the biscuits still didn’t rise to my satisfaction and they were slightly doughy on the inside.

This morning, rather than trying to adjust Enola Gay’s recipe, which I used in my first two attempts, I decided to simplify the whole thing and use what amounts to a reduced liquid and increased baking powder version of my not quite world famous griddle cake recipe. Today’s version consisted of 1 C whole wheat flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 Tbsp powdered milk, 1 Tbsp butter, and just enough warm water to make a stiff dough that I kneaded thoroughly and rolled to ½” thickness. Biscuits were cut into 2” diameter circles using an empty tomato sauce can as my biscuit cutter (a fine piece of junk-pile engineering even if I do say so myself). These were baked 13 minutes at 400 deg. F. in a shiny bottomed baking pan (no aluminum foil this time). They turned out great – not doughy and slightly golden crusted all around. The TAZ agreed that they were much better. Next time I’ll bake them a wee bit longer for a crisper crust.

One other “product improvement” will be tried soon. I’ll roll two ¼” thick slabs of dough, very lightly dust one of them with flour, and then stick the two together with the floured surface on the inside. After this I’ll cut the biscuits and then bake them. Hopefully, this will produce a biscuit that can be pulled apart easier into two equal halves for buttering with your favorite buttery spread along with some of my unsweetened El Dorado County Fuji or Pink Lady apple butter or my strawberry “sumpin” spread (pureed strawberries, freeze dried strawberries for texture and reduced runniness, and honey).

Now, some folks ask why use whole wheat flour when everyone knows that white flour makes better biscuits. Well, I’m not “everybody”. I’m a skeptic when I’m told something that “everybody” knows to be true. Perhaps I’m stubborn. Old Lady Hordon, my 6^th grade teacher, told me in early 1944 (just before D-Day) “Your are a stubborn German – Just like your uncle Karl”. She told me this when she told me something that I refused to believe just because it was in the school’s science book. She was right – I am a stubborn German. But I knew I was right and I was able to prove myself right and the book wrong 20 years later. Unfortunately, by that time she was no longer available for me to set her straight. That would have been sweet!!! (She was my favorite person to dislike intensely because she tried to “teach” me many things that I – humble me – knew weren’t true).

So why do I insist on whole wheat flour??? First, it’s what you get when you grind your own flour rather than buying it in the store. Second, it’s more nutritious because it contains the wheat germ and bran that are missing in white flour. And, third, I like the taste and texture of whole wheat products better than white flour despite the fact that whole wheat flour can be stored for only a few months rather than for years.

Vaya con Dios