Easy Sourdough Biscuits Recipe - Tender Homemade Biscuits! (2024)

FAQs

What are the two most important things to do to ensure a flaky and tender biscuit? ›

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.

Just bring it all together and let the ingredients do the work." In order to help the biscuits rise, all the experts agree that the fat — whether butter, shortening or margarine — needs to be cold, and there should still be visible chunks of that fat in the dough. Don't overmix.

With biscuits, however, the goal is to avoid this chewiness. So, by adding hard-boiled egg yolk to a biscuit recipe, you'll thwart the formation of gluten, thereby resulting in a buttery, flakey crumb that'll dissolve in your mouth.

The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.

Butter enriches baked goods by contributing tenderness and moistness, and is responsible for the flakiness in biscuits, pie crusts, and puff pastry. Because of its superior flavor, most bakers select unsalted butter over all other fats for use in baking.

White Lily brand flour, especially the self-rising flour, is the gold standard among Southern cooks who make biscuits on a regular basis. White lily, self rising. I use it for everything except those thing I make using either cake flour or yeast. If I'm using yeast I use King Arthur flours.

Pillai became known in India as the 'Biscuit King' or 'Biscuit Baron'. He took over Nabisco's other Asian subsidiaries. Pillai then established links with Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel (BSN), the French food company, and by 1989 controlled six Asian companies worth over US$400 million.

Cut off uneven edges and put these scraps to the side; clean cuts on all sides will encourage rise. Pat scraps together to make 1 odd-shaped ninth biscuit. Place biscuits close together in a 9-inch square pan and brush with melted salted butter. Place pan on top of the warm stove for 10 to 15 minutes to rise.

If you start asking around, any Southern chef, Southern Living Test Kitchen pro, or biscuit-making family member will swear by White Lily flour. Generations of bakers have claimed it as the secret to the perfect, flaky biscuit.

If there isn't enough egg, your batter or dough may not be able to hold its structure or could end up overly dry or dense. On the other hand, if there is too much egg, your baked goods could lose their shape due to excess liquid, or have a rubbery (or even overly cakey) texture depending on the recipe.

What does cream of tartar do in biscuits? ›

In the presence of a liquid, the acidity of the cream of tartar activates the baking soda, causing it to start bubbling away, and that, in turn, is what makes the biscuits rise.

Eggs are responsible for giving baked goods structure, which means the amount you use directly affects the resulting texture. Using too few eggs will make your desserts dense, but using too many will make them rubbery. The explanation for this lies in the fact that eggs are made up of protein.

You want to be quick and gentle with the dough and only use as much flour as necessary to prevent it from sticking. Adding too much flour will create dense and tough biscuits. A bench scraper makes easy work of moving the dough without having it stick.

Milk or Buttermilk: I love how this recipe works with milk or buttermilk. If you love the tangy flavor of buttermilk, use it.

If your biscuits are too tough…

Biscuit dough is moist and sticky, so much so that it may seem too wet after you've added all your flour. If you do think this about your dough, fight the urge to add more dry ingredients — dough that isn't wet enough will bake into a hard, dry biscuit.

Its combination of two fats – butter and shortening. Shortening gives the crust structure, keeping those pretty crimps in shape and preventing the crust from sagging. And butter adds its signature flavor. Both fats contribute to flakiness.

Keep the dough ingredients cool

The key to standard pie crust is having pockets of fat surrounded by flour. But if that fat starts to melt and mixes with the flour, it can start to develop gluten, which can lead to a tough crust. To prevent this, keep everything as cold as possible.

The process of making a flaky pastry involves “cutting” one quarter of the total fat into the flour such as a pie dough till it forms what resembles coarse meal. Proper incorporation of the fat, in this step, provides flour lubrication and restricts or at least delays its quick absorption of added water.

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.