By Kara Kimbrough
The homemade biscuit, a beloved American icon, is on the endangered species list. I blame it on supermarket biscuits marketing themselves as “homemade,” with an “old fashioned buttermilk taste.” In reality, they’re pale spheres of sticky dough ready to spring from their cans offering little more than synthetic butter. Here’s the main reason I’m upset about the neglect of the biscuit. I consider an old-fashioned, no-carbs-barred biscuit one of life’s top necessities. It’s a flaky bite of bliss that we all need now and then.
I could go on and on…a homemade biscuit is a soft pillow of comfort that makes eases life’s trials. Only the most hard-hearted Southerner would turn down a piping hot, fresh-from-the-oven biscuit. Plain and unadorned or filled with a little homemade jelly, it just doesn’t get any better than a biscuit.
Not many people make homemade biscuits anymore, but it wasn’t always this way. Flip through any cookbook from the 1960’s up until the health-conscious 1990’s and you’ll find page after page of biscuit recipes of every description. Key ingredients included whipping cream, sour cream, cream cheese, mayonnaise and even sourdough starter.
Of course, these fancier versions were predated by real biscuit pioneers, women like my grandmother who made a pan of biscuits each morning with hearty ingredients like shortening, flour, buttermilk and baking powder. These fist-sized balls of buttery goodness were one of the best reasons to get out of bed every morning.
To satisfy both camps – those who cling to their cans and homemade biscuit-lovers short on time or expertise – I can offer three solutions.
First, a recipe from Quail Ridge Press’ Quick & Easy Cookbook creates surprisingly-good Quick (and I Mean Quick) Herb Rolls out of a 12 ounce can of Hungry Jack Biscuits. Yes, they're from a can, but once they're "doctored" a little, all reservations are gone.
For those who revere the art of (almost real) biscuit-making, I'm sharing a simple 3-ingredient recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Best of Bell’s Best.
And last, those who are truly serious about making the BEST homemade biscuit you’ll ever taste in your life – Shirley Corrihor’s recipe for “Touch of Grace” Southern Biscuits found in her cookbook, BakeWise, is the only biscuit recipe you’ll ever need.
After the movie “The Help” premiered, I took a cooking class in which we were tasked with mastering recipes for the food served in the film. The movie’s culinary director used Shirley’s recipe to create light, fluffy biscuits.
To achieve this state of deliciousness, she combined extremely wet dough and a steamy oven. I was skeptical as I scooped dough that can only be described as “soupy” with an ice cream scoop into a cast iron skillet. However, the heat of the oven combined with the wet dough in the most delightful way, making me an instant convert to the technique.
The email for “Touch of Grace” biscuits is a little lengthy, so drop me an email if you’d like it and I’ll send it to you.
Whichever biscuit path you take, remember this axiom upon which all Southerners are raised. You can get away with almost anything if you bake hot biscuits.
Quick (and I Mean Quick) Herb Rolls
12 ounce can of Hungry Jack Biscuits
1-1/2 teaspoons parsley flakes
½ teaspoon dill weed
1 tablespoon onion flakes
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
In a 9 x 13 Pyrex dish, melt one stick of butter and add parsley flakes, dill weed, onion flakes and Parmesan cheese. Cut each biscuit in half and roll around in the butter mixture to coat. Place halves in the dish and bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
Recipe from Quail Ridge Press’ Quick and Easy Cookbook
3 Ingredient Biscuits
(adapted from Best of the Best of Bell’s Best Cookbook)
2 cups self-rising flour8 ounces sour cream
1 stick butter, melted (do not use margarine)
Mix all together and spoon into greased muffin tins, filling halfway. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until brown.
Kara Kimbrough is a food and travel writer from Mississippi. Contact her at kkprco@yahoo.com
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