Biscuit

These treats aren’t fancy; they’re just plain good and full of memories. You can prepare the strawberries up to a day ahead, but wait until just before serving the dessert to assemble it.

These are everything a good buttermilk biscuit should be: light, flaky, and exceedingly tender. They make appearances all over the menu at Bar Americain; they’re a fought-over item in our bread basket, the basis of Miss Stephanie’s Biscuits and Cream Gravy (page 223), and when I’m not feeling the waffles, the perfect accompaniment for fried chicken (page 131). A liberal dusting of black pepper gives the biscuits a subtle flush of heat that distinguishes them from the rest. The purists among you can leave out this last step if you prefer your biscuits free of adornment—they’re still melt-in-your-mouth good.

Cooked sweet potato adds body and flavor to these biscuits, but they are more savory than sweet—just right for buttering and sopping up gravy of any kind. Try them with Not Really Son-of-a-Bitch Stew (page 221), Tom Perini’s Chicken-fried Steak (page 227), or Beer-braised Short Ribs (page 222).

These biscuits take me back to my days at The Bag Lady, I would put a couple of these in each lunch container for an extra treat! They are wonderful.

This bread is wonderful served along with our Baked Spaghetti (see page 76) and a fresh salad.

James Beard’s excellent biscuit recipe can hardly be improved upon. But by using sour cream in the recipe, we feel the biscuits are a little creamier. If you prefer the original Beard biscuits, just omit the sour cream and double the heavy cream.

I’ve set myself up by staking a claim to the best biscuits ever. But when I made these biscuits, I was so astonished by their flavor and texture that I decided there couldn’t possibly be a more perfect biscuit—at least not any that I’ve ever tasted. Be forewarned, a generous amount of butter is a key ingredient here, so these biscuits are not for those who are squeamish about fat! That said, if you find these biscuits to be too rich, feel free to use low-fat buttermilk instead of cream for the liquid. Some people insist that only shortening has enough pure fat in it to make a flaky biscuit. While lard and shortening do contain 100 percent fat to butter’s mere 85 percent, there’s nothing to match butter when it comes to flavor. Also, I find that biscuits made with shortening sometimes have a waxy aftertaste. If you insist on using shortening, chill it for 1 hour before cutting it into the dough, and reduce the amount by about 15 percent, to 7 tablespoons (3.5 oz / 99 g). I have heard it said that there are two types of people in the world, those who like tender biscuits and those who like flaky biscuits. (I’m usually in the flaky camp.) In this recipe, I’ve replaced the traditional buttermilk with cream, which essentially makes this both a cream biscuit (and therefore tender) and a flaky biscuit. If you wonder how I arrived at this idea, it was one of those aha/duh moments, in this case brought about because I had forgotten to buy buttermilk. Discovering that I had some heavy cream on hand, I realized that there was no rule prohibiting me from trying to bring the best of both worlds together. I learned a new trick for incorporating the butter into the flour from a few of my excellent recipe testers: Freeze the butter, then use the large holes on a cheese grater to grate it directly into the dry ingredients (or use the grater attachment on a food processor, with the dry ingredients in the bowl below). Not only does this method save time, but it creates the perfect size butter pieces for the biscuits. You can use this method when making pie dough too!

My contribution to my family’s Thanksgiving meal has always been cornbread. In making it so many times, I discovered that it’s a great vehicle for fruit, cooked grains, or vegetables. This variation has a thick batter, so these are more like biscuits than bread. Pale orange and scarlet-flecked, these biscuits make a beautiful addition to a holiday table.

Start this recipe the night before serving it so that the lavender can soak in the cream and impart a strong flavor. Use fresh or dried lavender, but stay away from ornamental lavender, which is usually treated with pesticides. If you prefer, substitute peaches or nectarines for the apricots.

Forget fancy gènoise or sponge cake; in the South, a shortcake is really just a sweet biscuit. Granted, this recipe is a step above, flavored with orange zest and sprinkled with raw sugar that sparkles like amber on the golden tops. At Martha Stewart Living Television, we served miniature versions of these buttery brown sugar shortcakes filled with peaches, strawberries, and blueberries at a luncheon attended by President Clinton.

Angel biscuits are lighter than traditional buttermilk biscuits because they contain yeast as well as the usual baking powder, baking soda, or both. The yeast gives them an extra push as well as another layer of flavor. Traditional biscuits can be intimidating to novice bakers, especially if first efforts yielded rock-hard results, not light and tender biscuits. The trio of leaveners protects even the worst of bakers from abject failure. This dough is also appealing because it can be prepared ahead of time and held in the refrigerator for three to five days (baking powder and baking soda alone would have long lost their “oomph”). This holding power lets you pinch off a bit of dough at a time to make a few fresh biscuits during the week. It’s also a heck of a lot better than the preservative- and chemical-laden tubes of refrigerated biscuit dough.

Mama made these often when we were growing up. After I attended culinary school, I admittedly became quite snobby about using store-bought ingredients in recipes. I wanted to make the mayonnaise, not buy it. This type of recipe seemed one short step above a baking mix. Now a little older and wiser, I appreciate it for what it is. I understand Mama was putting freshly baked bread on the family table, and that was really important. I now ask for them when I go home to visit and enjoy every sweet bite.

Meme most often made rolled biscuits. For large biscuits, she had a special aluminum cutter with a small wooden handle that fit in the palm of her hand. She cut out small biscuits with an empty apple juice can open at both ends. Some purists use lard instead of butter. Although I like biscuits made with lard and understand the tradition and history, Meme and Mama had started using butter by the time I was born. The perfect biscuit should be golden brown and slightly crisp on the outside, with a light, airy interior. For a flaky, tender biscuit, don’t overwork the dough: gently combine the ingredients until just blended. A very hot oven is essential. The steam interacts with the baking powder to create the biscuit’s ideal textures inside and out.

A traditional summer treat, especially yummy when strawberries are in season. For the sweetest berries, nothing beats freshly picked. Adjust the amount of agave nectar you use in the filling depending on the sweetness of the berries.

These diminutive tea biscuits are a wonderful little treat. My son Lennon, upon tasting them, told me he’d like to take them with him to heaven. Really, he said that. Just a little word of caution: these puppies are hot, so wait until they’ve cooled a bit to eat them, or the orange marmalade will scorch the roof of your mouth.

Nutty golden flax adds omega-3s, lignans, and fiber to these savory biscuits, perfect with any meal. Have them for breakfast with vegan butter and jam, pair them up with soup for lunch, or pass them in the bread basket at dinner.