Little Wife On the Prairie





When you are everything to everyone, well, you had better act like you have it all together.



Tuesday, February 8, 2011

I'm a square. So are my biscuits!

I am a self-proclaimed nerd.  I am really okay with it.  It's fun to be interested in things I love.  I don't care if watching the History Channel is dorky or if getting excited about compost makes me a weirdo.

 I would rather read a book than go to a party or have a picture of my food in a cookbook rather than have a picture of me in a magazine.  I am a square, an L-7 wienie.  (Who remembers that movie?)   

So it is no surprise that my biscuits, instead of being nice and round, would be square.  (Nice segue, right?)  If you have ever made homemade biscuits before, you know the process is, well...a process.  Rolling dough, cutting.  Rolling excess dough, cutting. It goes on and on until you have used all of the dough.  Here is my method.


I have a good recipe for a baking powder biscuit.  I have used it for years.  These just happen to be whole wheat. 


After you roll them out, instead of using a round cutter and having to re-roll the trimmings, I just use a pizza cutter or an ulu to cut the dough.  It saves you from having to work the dough over and over which tends to make biscuits tough. 


As you can see, they are not uniform.  The edges are not perfectly square.  Who cares!  We are just going to slather them with butter and jelly. 

These were delicious but a little different.  They did not puff as much as my plain, white flour biscuits do.   I will have to play with the recipe.  But they soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.  Mmmmmm.  They go great with coffee...or gravy.

Making these from scratch is just as easy as making them from a mix but not nearly as easy as pulling them out of the freezer.  (Although, I have had success with making them and freezing them for convenience.) 

The great thing about these is that they have 5 ingredients.  You can know for sure what your family is eating.  The ones you find in the grocery store have way more than 5 ingredients and some of them are not pretty.  (Natural and artificial flavoring?)

 Cutting them in squares makes them that much easier to make so give it a try.!

Baking Powder Biscuits    

2 cups unbleached white flour (you can use 1/2 whole wheat)
3 tsp baking powder (I always use the non-aluminum kind)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil or butter
3/4 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients.  Make a well (or dent) in the dry ingredients.  Add the milk and fat to the center.  Mix with a fork until dough forms a wet ball.  Turn out onto a flat surface and knead 10 strokes just to make the dough uniform.  Lightly roll out dough to 1 inch thick.  Cut (however you prefer, I won't judge.) and place on a baking sheet. (Make sure you cut straight down into the dough and do not twist.  This can seal the edges of the dough and prevent them from rising when baking)  Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until slightly browned. 
Makes 8 to 10 biscuits.

6 comments:

Brandon and April said...

I sooooooo wish we could be compost buddies!! I've always wanted a compost pile! But I figured we weren't in this house long enough to do much with it...plus I wasn't sure how the church would view that. "those crazy hippies living in our missionary house over there have rotten stuff growing in the backyard!!"

Carrie said...

Great idea! I will have to try this out. I haven't made homemade biscuits for a variety of reasons, and your recipe & method take care of a few of those. :-) Looking forward to homemade biscuits slathered with real butter and jam. (Too bad I don't have any homemade jam...maybe next year!)

Prairie Rose said...

Yummy!
I love making biscuits into different shapes.
In the autumn I make a Butternut Squash Soup with Biscuits but I cut the biscuits with a awesome autumn leaf cutter I have:)
I also cut hearts and stars!
Fun and yummy:)

stacy said...

Sandlot? Hahaha love that movie.

Cute blog, I saw a link on another blog.

Rachel said...

I'm gonna have to try these! And I here you about being a Square-give me a book or some compost any day!

Rosita Designs said...

oh, my nana made THE best biscuits, but she left us without a recipe. :(

i'm going to have to try these, because they look delicious (even if they are square!)