Recipe: Rolled Biscuits

Pulled out the rolling pin this week for a rolled biscuit recipe I've been looking at sideways for a while now. Will they come out flaky and fluffy, or will they fall flat? Rolled biscuits, here I come.

Recipe: Rolled Biscuits
1 3/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. double-acting baking powder
6 Tbsp. chilled butter
3/4 c. milk
Extra flour for dusting

0. Preheat your oven to 450ºF (my oven runs hot & in fairly precise increments of 5º, so I set it to 445ºF).



1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Cut in chilled butter using a fork or a biscuit cutter, until pastry has a clump-free, flaking consistency. Create a cavity in the center of the dough and pour in the milk. Use a fork to stir the liquid into the pastry, turning it around the bowl until it begins to pull away from the sides.

2. Turn the dough on to a floured board and knead quickly -- only 8 to 10 times, so it retains a flaky consistency and doesn't get tough. Roll the dough out in as few strokes as possible. Use a round pastry cutter, a large cookie cutter, or even a floured glass to cut the biscuits into shape, then place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Cool 2 minutes before serving with butter.

Well, here's how they came out:



Yup, flat as flat can be. I could barely pull apart two halves of the biscuit to put butter inside. Though they worked for my purposes (dipping in soup), I think I'll probably try a different dough next time, because this experiment turned out far from perfect. I was fantasizing about flaky, puffy, southern-style biscuit towers and I got a squished-down version instead. Maybe it's time to seek out a bag of White Lily and see if I can't turn out a batch of these.