Every time I went to visit my grandmother I would pour through her cookbooks and write down recipes I wanted to try. As I did she would often share some little remembrances about a certain recipe. Little snippets of my family history. When my
grandmother passed away in 1999 I inherited her collection of cookbooks and recipes.
Traditions
are celebrated with food, as we all know, which makes them rather special. We have a long list of things we make and
serve to celebrate certain occasions.
But every day foods, in particular the biscuit, are special in their own
right. Especially when they are golden,
light and fluffy and downright delicious.
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| My re-creation. |
My
grandmother had her mother's recipes and cookbooks, which I also inherited as
part of her collection. In fact, my most
favorite cookbook belonged to her. It
was so old and well used that I photo copied every page and fit it into a new
binder full of page protectors. The
original is put away for safekeeping. This cookbook is the one I use the most. It also holds the biscuit recipe.
Baking Powder Biscuits
2 cups flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. butter, shortening or lard
1 cup milk
Place flour, baking powder and salt into
large mixing bowl. Whisk together with a
fork. Using back of the fork cut butter into
flour thoroughly, until it resembles coarse meal. Add milk and stir to just to
combine. Scrape dough onto well floured
board. Knead lightly with flour until
dough is no longer sticky and you can easily pat out a circle about 3/4 of an
inch thick. Use round cutter or glass
dipped in flour to cut out biscuits.
Place on lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 15 to 18 minutes until tops
are golden brown. Do not over bake.
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| Once fat is worked in flour should look like this. |
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| Dough will be sticky so start with ample amount of flour on your board. I dump out a 1/4 cup. |
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| Knead it just enough until you can pat out a nice thick circle. |
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| Placed in a lightly oiled pan and ready for a hot oven. |
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| Ready for butter and jam! |
My
grandmother told me that when times were tough, as they often were when she was
young, and they had no butter they would spread bacon grease on their
biscuits. It didn't sound too appetizing
to me but she insisted that it tasted pretty good when you were hungry. I imagine so.
Oh, this makes my hungry now. If you've never read The Grapes of Wrath, I can recommend it if only to realise how well off we are. In developing countries oil and flour are the main sources of calories. I've always said 'poor folks' food' is some of the best tasting, if not always the healthiest. I've tried making biscuits here (American biscuits, not British one - Brits call cookies biscuits and crackers 'savoury biscuits') but haven't been happy with the results. I knew that to make bread in the breadmaker we needed 'strong flour' instead of ordinary flour; what only recently learned was that this strong flour is made from American wheat, which has more gluten than European wheat. So I'm wondering if my biscuits were disappointingly flat because of wimpy wheat? I'm going to try again sometime (though if I succeed it probably won't be good news for my waistline). It's one of the things I really miss here, biscuits. They've never heard of those nifty refrigerator packs either...
ReplyDeleteYou need a couple rolls of Grands! Might be worth having someone overnight you a few with an ice pack. :)
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