quick breads: the secret to flaky biscuits

watching a southern pastry chef make biscuits will undoubtedly melt your heart a little bit. the care and attention she gives to each step is what gets you, because you realize that she has a very specific idea of what the final product should taste like: tender, flaky and very buttery.

when someone in class asked about substituting some of the pastry or bread flour with whole wheat flour, Chef Kim Patterson replied flatly, “never. when i bite into a biscuit, i don’t want to taste wheat. it should convey butter or gravy. that’s a biscuit’s purpose in life.” though she used a mixer to demonstrate blending the ingredients, her hands were involved in every step from the beginning. she coated each piece of cold butter in the dry ingredients before dropping them in, “to be sure they don’t stick together.” and while the ingredients mixed, she periodically stopped the mixer to check on the size of the butter chunks. “people say baking and pastry is an exact science, but i think there’s a definite feel to it as well,” she said.

like her dad, she prefers her biscuits flaky, not crumbly. and flaky biscuits require larger pieces of butter throughout the dough. “smaller pieces of fat produce crumbly biscuits. if you leave the fat in bigger pieces, you get flakes. i like mine in what i call edamame size,” she said, lifting a few large pea-sized butter chunks out of the flour to show that it was indeed ready for the liquid to be added. “as the dough forms in the oven, the fat will melt throughout and keep the dough from sticking together.”

when making biscuits, it is essential that the ingredients–especially the liquids and fats–are cold. after blending all the dry ingredients, you gradually cut in the fat using a fork, your hands or a pastry cutter to break it up into manageable pieces. you mix until the butter pieces reach their desired size, then pour in the wet ingredients, taking care to mix the dough until it is just combined, so you don’t overwork the gluten, which will make for tough biscuits. (the only acceptable tough biscuits, Chef Kim says, are purposely hard tack-like beaten biscuits from kentucky, though she attests that they’re no picnic to eat.) one other note i must add: it makes for a more accurate, and thus tastier, baked product if you measure everything by weight, as i’ve done below. don’t fret. just buy a little electronic scale that measures in ounces–they are about $20. it also helps, according to Chef Kim, if you refer to each baked product as a “him,” because, after all, everything you create is a little bundle of joy.

cheddar and parmesan biscuits

yield: 18-22 biscuits

1 lb. 4 oz. bread flour
1 lb. 4 oz. pastry flour
0.75 oz. salt
2 oz. sugar
2.5 oz. baking powder
6 oz. grated cheddar cheese
6 oz. grated parmesan cheese
14 oz. cold butter, cut into cubes
1 lb. 10 oz. cold milk

preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. in a large bowl or a standing mixer, blend the flours, salt, sugar, baking powder and cheeses well. next, using your hands, a fork or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter. break the butter down with your hands or in the mixer until the pieces are the size of edamame.

floury hands

for more crumbly biscuits, continue mixing a little longer, until the butter chunks are in spring pea-sized pieces. next, add the milk and mix until just combined. it’s ok if your dough is slightly lumpy. turn your dough out onto a floured countertop or large cutting board. roughly shape it into a rectangle and roll it out until it is about 3/4 to 1 inch thick.

with a sharp knife, cut the dough into two- or three-inch square biscuits (this is more effective than cutting rounds, which leave you with scraps). you should end up with 18 to 22 large, rustic biscuits. move them to a baking sheet, and bake them for about 12 minutes, until they’ve puffed up and become a lovely golden brown. serve them warm with room temperature butter for smearing.