Mile High Perfect Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to an excellent biscuit? ›

Handle the dough as little as possible. Every time you touch, knead and fold, you are developing gluten. The more developed the gluten, the tougher the biscuit. Our recipe asks you to the dough 10 times; this will create a cohesive dough with visible pieces of butter and sprinkles of flour.

Keep the oven hot.

When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.

In terms of flakiness, the best fat for making biscuits is probably lard, and vegetable shortening is the next best. In terms of flavor, however, butter is undoubtedly the best, with lard a close second.

The best flour for making biscuits is White Lily flour. It's not available everywhere, so the next best thing is King Arthur All Purpose flour. White lily, self rising. I use it for everything except those thing I make using either cake flour or yeast.

As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.

But if you chill your pan of biscuits in the fridge before baking, not only will the gluten relax (yielding more tender biscuits), the butter will harden up. And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

Conclusion: More baking powder makes the biscuit rise more (imagine that!). About 1 tablespoon of baking powder per 2 cups of flour seems to be about the right amount, but even halving or doubling this amount should not ruin your biscuits.

Basically, you pat the dough out into a rectangle, then fold it up into thirds (like you're folding a letter to put in an envelope), then repeat that process. This trick applies to scones too. This step ensures your biscuits will bake up tall, with distinct layers of flaky goodness.

Lard has a higher melting point than butter, which means that you'll likely end up with lighter, flakier biscuits (or cookies that spread less - not sure what kind of biscuits you mean). However, the upside with butter will always be flavor. Your biscuits won't taste like butter if you don't make them with butter.

Does sifting flour make biscuits better? ›

Sifting definitely helps remove clumps, which is important when baking fine pastries, but it also helps distribute any added dry ingredients (like salt or baking powder) evenly. Flour clumps are not good eats.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and pat it down into a rough rectangle, about an inch thick. Fold it over and gently pat it down again. Repeat two more times. Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.

The key to making great biscuits is to use cold butter. We dice up the butter and then refrigerate it until ready to use. Cold butter will produce the fluffiest layers in your biscuits. Do not over-mix – once liquids touch the flour, mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.

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.

Milk encourages the browning reactions characteristic of baked goods like pastry crusts, cookies and biscuits. Milk contributes to the keeping quality of bread and gives it a soft crust. Additional protein and sugar (lactose) in milk adds more sweetness and a browner color to baked goods than water.

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.

Some bakers swear by increasing the oven temperature at the end of the cooking time for about a couple of minutes. This little boost in heat accelerates the browning process, giving the biscuits a more pronounced golden brown crust without overcooking them.

Conversely you might find that your biscuits are too crumbly. The likelihood here is that your recipe needs a bit more liquid, or your recipe has too high a ratio of flour. Be sparing with any flour you put on the work surface to roll your dough too.

Mixing. The multi-stage mixing method is preferred for its ability to produce consistent doughs which are not fully developed. Blending all dry ingredients to rub or cut the shortening into the flour until fat is fully distributed and pea-sized lumps are visible.