Biscuits - this time, they don't suck

Ok, ok, ok. I screwed the pooch on those last biscuits. man, they were bad. I'm not even going to say where I got the recipe from. The source may one day read this blog, and I'm a little afraid of her.

I was reading the NYT today. They had a little article on buttermilk and how it's making a comeback.
1) did it ever leave?
2) who drinks that stuff? (shudder)
The recipe they published is an adaptation from the Watershed Restaurant in Decatur, Ga. I changed it up some too. I have a small rant planned.

Oven at 500

2 cups cold buttermilk
1 T cream of tartar
1.5 t baking soda
5 cups AP flour (1.5 #) (rant building)
1T +1t Diamond Crystal kosher salt (.5 oz) (rant rising)
.5 cup +2 T butter, cubed, cold (5 oz) (urge to rant at critical)



(Insert rant here)

why in god's name do people do that nonsense? 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of butter, or 2 cups flour? Is it that hard to actually weigh something out? It's lazy and makes me crazy.

Say you don't have Diamond Crystal salt. Say you are using another kosher salt of heaven forbid you buck the trend towards kosher salt and use table salt. If you used the technique of measuring it by volume, you would be screwed. And don't get me started on flour. I say if you insist on using volume as your sole method of measuring, it means you don't love America, freedom, or puppies.

I say everyone should take a look at this book. It makes so much sense
(End rant)

Sift all of the dry together.
Throw in the butter and work it with your hands until it has a nice consistency. Think wet sand with a few lumps of butter.





Make a well in the middle and pour the milk in. Mix with your hands or you can use a spoon if you wish. The spoon will just get clogged up and hard to deal with pretty quickly.

The dough should feel slight tacky. If it's dry to the touch, add another couple T of buttermilk.

Once that's done, dump it out and form into a disc.


I like to roll it out, then fold it like you would with puff pastry. It gives the finished product a nice layered look.



Once I have folded it over, I like to use a floured glass and cut the biscuits out. Jon should like this part.



Bake for about 10-15 min.


And as always, ice for the dog

Opps

Ok so I finally got around to trying those biscuits. Wow, they are craptastic.

So don't use that recipe yet. I have been poking around all my cookbooks and will come up with a better recipe soon.

c'mon in a sit a spell

Making biscuits makes me feel all down home and southern. More so now that I am surrounded by yankees :)

So by request, here is a real simple biscuit recipe

4 c AP flour
4 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp salt
1 T sugar
6 T butter cold in small dice
1 egg + 1 yolk
.5 cup buttermilk
4 oz sharp cheddar


Oven to 425.

Throw all of the dry ingredients into the food processor and mix for a few seconds. Then add the butter and process until it is like sand.


We should talk about butter vs. shortening vs lard. All three are valid in this recipe. I personally just don't dig shortening. For me, shortening just has a nasty, greasy, artificial taste. So it's really down to lard or butter. I used butter because it's what I had on hand. But lard is a great substitute.

Pour out into bowl and mix in cheese. Mix together buttermilk and eggs and stir until just comes together.
Now onto a floured surface. Knead just a couple of times, and sprinkle with flour. Roll out to 3/4 inch thick.


Cut with floured biscuit cutter (i.e. mason jar).


Cook until nice and brown. ~13-16 min.


Slather with butter and honey while wearing a seersucker suit.

Opps, I forgot to dispense the ice. Now I am going to have to deal with being stared at.

Finally have pictures of the lemon/raspberry chiffon/mousse/curd thing

I still need to come up with a better name.

The problem with doing cakes for other people is that I don't get to take a bazillion pictures of the finished product for my audience of hundre...umm dozens. Ok, one drunk guy in San Francisco

Here is the larger image



And this is a 100% crop of the area of interest

Lemon chiffon cake filled with lemon curd, topped with raspberry mousse

I really need to find a shorter name for this. How about "Lemon/raspberry awesomeness"?

This is a multi-part recipe with one fairly specialized piece of equipment.

So first, let's make the cake.

As usual I use a recipe from The Cake Bible. This is the "Lemon Glow Chiffon Cake".

Rose (I call her Rose because she and I are tight like that) has this cake being made in a tube pan. I simply put it in the usual 10 inch cake pan, sprayed with Pam then sugared.

Cake flour, sifted (always sift cake flour) 8 oz
Sugar 10.5 oz
Baking soda .5 tsp
Salt .5 tsp
Safflower oil .5 cup ( I used a a combo of olive and corn oil since I didn't have any safflower)
Eggs (separated) 7
Egg whites 3
Water .66 cup
Lemon juice 2Tbl
Lemon zest 1 Tbl
Vanilla 1 tsp (I used 1 pod)
Cream of tarter 1.25 tsp

Oven to 325

Mix flour soda, salt and all but 2 Tbl of the sugar. Beat for ~1 minute.


Add the oil, yolks, water, juice, zest, and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Put that to the side and beat the whites until it starts to foam.
Add the tarter and beat to soft peaks.
Add the reserved 2 Tbl sugar and beat to stiff peaks. I tend to not do super stiff. I'm middle aged now and ...oh wait, wrong conversation. But I think that the line between stiff and overwhipped is very fine. So I usually put it up just short of what a lot of folks would call stiff peaks.

Using a wire whisk, fold the whites into the batter. Don't go crazy, just until they are blended.

Throw it in the oven and bake.

While the cake is cooling, start the curd.

Lemon juice 4 oz
Sugar 3 oz
Zest of lemon, organic non treated 1
Eggs 4 02
Sugar 3.5 oz
Butter, lump free at room temperature 6 oz

Bring lemon juice, first sugar and zest to a boil.
Meanwhile, whisk together eggs and second sugar without making the mixture thick and airy.
Temper the juice mixture into the egg mixture. Then back into the pot and whisk vigorously to a boil.

Boil 1 minute while whisking well. Remove from heat and cool to 120
You can use an ice bath or just let it cool. For this recipe, let's just let it cool. It will give us time to prep the cake

What I do is using a sharp paring knife, cut a circle into the top of the cake. Go about a half inch down. Then crosshatch the circle to make it easy to pull the cake out.


Once the cake is prepped, the curd should be close to 120, add the soft butter in 4-5 increments, stirring with a rubber spat to incorporate the butter.


If the curd is too hot, you will just melt the butter and that would be bad. If it's too cold, you will give yourself tendonitis trying to get the butter incorporated.

Once the butter is all in, simply fill the cake with the curd. And you can throw the whole shebang in the fridge and let it set. Before you do, put the cake ring around the cake. It'll make life easier when it's time to add the mousse.


And of course, take a break and give the big head dog some ice


Lastly, we begin the mousse.

Raspberry puree 1 lb 9 oz
Raspberry liquor (optional) 1 oz
Egg whites 5 oz
Sugar 9 oz
Water 3 oz
Gelatin 7 sheets (or one packet) bloomed in some water
Heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks 16 oz

To make the puree, I simply get a bag of frozen raspberries and bring them to a boil with a little sugar and a pinch of salt. Once everything is all broken down, strain the solids from the liquids. the result can be less than 1lb 9, but it works just fine.


Prepare an Italian meringue with the egg whites, sugar and water

This is much like making the buttercream icing process.
Whites in the Kitchenaid on low.
Water and sugar in a pot. Bring sugar to 250.
Once the sugar gets boiling, increase the speed on the whites.
This is a total timing game. The whites should be just getting to a soft peak when you add the syrup to them.
So once the syrup hits 250, add the geletin and stir. It will foam up and have a nasty, hot gelatin smell.
Now crank the speed on the mixer up to max and pour the syrup down the side of the bowl.
Let it run until the bottom of the bowl is just sort of warm to the touch.

Add .25 of the raspberry puree to the meringue and combine well.

Add the remaining raspberry puree to the meringue and gently fold together
Add soft whipped cream and fold together

Take the cake out of the fridge and pour the mousse into the ring.


Let it all set up for at least 3 hours.

I will have pictures of the final product later.

I have been in Vancouver BC the past number of days for work. But while I was there, I did manage to go to an awesome restaurant. Le Crocodile has excellent food and just incredible service.

More recipes coming up later this week. I promise.