Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [31]
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Surprisingly messy
Cost comparison: Homemade: $1.75 per pound of baked biscuits. Pillsbury: $2.00.
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1½ teaspoons baking soda
5 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
1 tablespoon kosher salt
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons cold lard or 10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups cold buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
BAKING POWDER
If biscuits are wonderful made with cream of tartar and baking soda—the building blocks of baking powder—why do we need store-bought baking powder at all? To find out, I made my own baking powder by sifting together 1 part baking soda with 2 parts cream of tartar. I baked two batches of sugar cookies, one using this homemade baking powder and the second using Clabber Girl Double Acting baking powder. Some people think there’s a tinny taste to double acting baking powder, but to me, the cookies tasted identical. However, they didn’t look identical. The commercial powder produced a tidier, cakier cookie while the cookies made with homemade powder spread and sprawled and were generally ungainly. That said, my baking powder experiments—and the testimony of people with fine palates—have made me reconsider Clabber Girl. Henceforth, I intend to buy aluminum-free baking powder, such as Rumford or the Whole Foods house brand.
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Sift the cream of tartar and soda together into a large bowl. Whisk in the flour and salt, then add the fat. Working quickly, rub the mixture between your fingertips or use a pastry cutter until half is coarsely blended and the remaining pieces are clumpy.
3. Add the buttermilk and stir until a sticky dough forms. If it seems dry, add a bit more buttermilk.
4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface. Knead until it forms a ball. Flatten the dough and roll it out until it is ½ to ¾ inch thick.
5. Cut the dough into 2½-inch rounds. Roll out the scraps and cut until all the dough is gone. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
6. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. While the biscuits are still hot, brush with the melted butter. These are best eaten soon, ideally within the hour. Once they’re cool, though, you can zap them for 5 seconds in the microwave. They keep 3 days in an airtight container.
Makes about nineteen 2-ounce biscuits
PARCHMENT PAPER
Kitchen parchment is shiny brown paper that has been coated with silicone, rendering it nonstick and ideal for baking. It looks a lot like waxed paper, but don’t confuse the two. If you try to bake cookies or biscuits on waxed paper, smoke will start seeping out of your oven. For baking, it’s parchment you want. Parchment costs about $3.99 for a 30-foot roll, or $0.13 per foot. Since most cookie sheets are about 17 inches long, that means for each batch of cookies it costs $0.18 to line the sheet with parchment. Is this a good deal? To grease a cookie sheet with butter costs about $0.09. On the other hand, you can often reuse parchment paper once or twice, depending on how dirty it gets. (After the second or third use it becomes brittle, and it’s time to toss it.) On the other hand, I often grease pans with scrag ends of butter that no one is eager to spread on toast. And while you would think you wouldn’t have to wash the cookie sheet after it’s been lined with parchment, often the fat from the biscuits or cookies soaks right through. It’s a draw: If you like using parchment, use parchment. If you don’t, use butter. Or PAM.
LEFTOVER BISCUITS: BISCUIT PUDDING
There’s bread pudding, so why not biscuit pudding? Why not indeed. After even just a few hours, once rich and tender biscuits become about as appetizing as a child’s board book. The idea for this pudding came from a Salon story by a writer reminiscing about his Southern grandmother’s biscuit pudding. I took some liberties with the recipe as written and ended up with a dessert that I love