Biscuit Information

Ingredients

In praise of the tender biscuit

CHARLOTTE (N.C.) OBSERVER

Pity the poor biscuit.

Preparation

Dismissed as too fattening. Ignored as too much work. Lumped together with grits and fatback as a symbol of country living, the hayseed cousin of croissants and rolls.

These days, biscuits have been reduced to drive-through fast-food breakfasts or a cramped existence inside a tube we whack against the counter.

But there was a time - oh yes, children - when the biscuit reigned supreme.

Biscuits at breakfast meant someone got up and made them for your pleasure.

So when did biscuits begin their slide? Blame it on railroads and baking powder. The railroads made white flour more widely available.

Baking powder, which became commercially available in the mid-19 th century, made biscuits easier.

Before long, biscuits were common - "the poor man's white bread."

When biscuit-making was an everyday skill, a thicket of myths grew up around it. Handle the dough just so; don't handle the fat with your fingers; never twist the cutter; always - or never - let the biscuits touch on the baking sheet.

It's no wonder that when convenience products like baking mixes and tube biscuits came along, cooks were happy to let somebody else take over.

But before biscuit-making passes out of our lives entirely, it's worth remembering that they are really very simple.

There are just a few things to know about making good biscuits, says Shirley Corriher, a former chemist. Her book on food science, "CookWise," included a recipe for her grandmother's fluffy Touch of Grace biscuits.

Most people know that a low-protein flour is a must for biscuits. When protein cells grab each other, they form tough sheets of gluten that help trap gases, letting breads rise. Less protein means less gluten, for more tender biscuits and pastries. But liquid is a part of the secret, too, Corriher says.

If there's less protein, the flour will absorb less moisture. "All that moisture is left in the dough to turn into steam," making a moist, tender biscuit.

Another problem we encounter with biscuits may be our expectations.

We say "tender and flaky," but flaky isn't the same as tender.

"For a flake, you have to have a piece of fat big enough to act as a flaker," Corriher says. In other words, there has to be a piece of fat with flour on either side of it. If the fat is big enough and cold enough to hold its shape until the oven heat hits it, it will leave a space when it melts - a flake.

Recipes that tell you to cut - or mix - fat into flour "until it resembles coarse crumbs" never will give you a flaky biscuit, she says.

Mixing the fat until it looks like fine meal will give you a tender biscuit. For flakes, you need bits of fat that are as big and flat as pieces of uncooked oatmeal.

Placement in the baking pan or on a baking sheet does make a difference, but it's up to you. Biscuits placed close together stay moister and rise higher.

Biscuits placed farther apart stay flatter and get crispier.

In the end, when you take a sheet of hot biscuits out of the oven, split one open and add a pat of butter, you will learn something important about cooking: Biscuits may have once reached mythical proportions. But they are really no mystery at all.

Corriher's soft, cake-like biscuits came from watching her grandmother make them. When her first attempts failed, her grandmother would tell her,

"Honey, I guess you forgot to add a touch of grace."

Eventually, Corriher figured out the real secret: a very wet dough, dropped into extra flour for ease of handling, then packed tightly into a cake pan.