Shirley's Recipe Sans Heavy Cream

I wish they had turned out, I really did. But they just weren't the same without the heavy cream. Shirley suggests that you try it at least once with heavy cream and I did. The second time around with just buttermilk just didn't cut the cake so to speak.

I learned another valuable lesson this time too. I was so rushed to get the recipe in the darn oven that I forgot to integrate the shortning into the recipe. So essentially, there wasn't enough fat in the recipe. Granted, the Buttermilk that I use has 8 grams of fat per 1 cup with 150 calories so there is some fat in there but not enough to make a good biscuit. Most Buttermilk I find in the stores is 1 1/2 % milkfat or 3.5 grams per 1 cup serving. I really like Marburger Farm Dairy out of Evans City, PA. Believe it or not, it's hard to find REAL BUTTERMILK here in Atlanta. I realized it before I put them into the oven so I figured I'd bake them anyways. They were quite spongy. They lacked crumb and real flavor. It somewhat resembled cornbread in looks but not in flavor. So. here I was with two pans of biscuits for breakfast.

The weather has started to cool off a bit so we ate outside with sausage and eggs. We took the smell test to see which one smelled better. The one with shortning or the one without. I felt like the one without shortning had more of a flour smell but Brian and Emily couldn't really determine. So the test was inconclusive.

Sunday Breakfast

Granny, I am bringing out your bowl today.

This is the same bowl that Granny used to make her most delectable biscuits that only the Walley family who knew her dream about. There is still some flour in there and traces of excellence...traces of flour in the bowl. Since I'm getting better, I think this next recipe should be "bowl worthy."

More Research

There is a place called the Flying Biscuit here in Atlanta that has always had great biscuits. I haven't had them in a while so I stop there to get one. They serve it with apple butter which is something like reddish spiced thick apple sauce. The warm biscuit costs me $1.39 and since I'm doing research I sit in my car and eat the whole thing. The interesting thing about this biscuit is that it looks like they twist it with a biscuit cutter and it does break apart in two pieces. Clearly the top and the bottom. The top has a large granulated sugar on the top and I think they used buttermilk. It was yummy but it did give me a slight flour taste. I bet you they use White Lilly. I think I will integrate the sugar in top of my biscuit for Sunday morning breakfast. I have some extra apple butter that will taste really great on the biscuits too!

Giddy

I can't make another recipe unless I write about my last recipe. Today I am writing about Shirley Corriher's Touch of Grace Biscuits. Her Cookbook, Cookwise, a winner of a James Beard Award, has amazing recipes. Shirley calls herself a food sleuth and tells how and why things happen in cooking. She has appeared many times on Alton Brown's show, Good Eats. I've met her on more than one occasion in Atlanta and have chatted with her about cooking and her cookbook that she was trying to finish back then. She did finish her book called Bakewise which is the same idea as Cookwise only for baking. It's on my purchase list.



Once, at a wine and food pairing here in Atlanta, Shirley was there and we started chatting about cooking and entertaining. I told how unsure on what to make for dessert for the girls for an afternoon lunch. She suggested that I serve strawberries soaked in balsamic vinegar. The balsamic pulls the color and flavor out and it was perfect for my ladies lunch.



Shirley's Touch of Grace Biscuits are made like her Nannie's. The secret is the very wet dough and tossing them in your hands to shape--not manhandle them. As you've read before, my goal is to make biscuits like Grannie, Brian's grandmother.

So the scenario is that it's Sunday morning and I have everything all planned on how I'm going to whip all of this together. I premixed the dry ingredients before church and when I get home, I'll turn on the oven and whip up the biscuits. The recipe goes pretty smoothly and it is interesting that she uses both heavy cream and buttermilk in these biscuits. If you look at the pictures provided, they are very delicate when you put them together and they take some time and care. My ice cream scoop (that is on my list) would have come in handy to measure out these little balls of fluff. The recipe says that it makes ten but I'm lucky if I get seven. They are too big but it is too late to change the size. I've been told to not handle these puppies too much and I'm not going to ruin it. In the oven they go.

Breakfast is served with fresh eggs we got from Dobbins Farm, homemade fig preserve, Applewood smoked bacon, orange juice that was gourmet pasteurized (it really does taste better) and the biscuits. Brian takes one look at them and said that he thinks that we're almost there. He's giddy with delight as how much they crumble. The butter melts in their spongy like texture and they are very light and airy. Emily can't stop eating them. She's never done this before so I know this recipe is a keeper. She keeps picking at them and can't stop. I will try this recipe again but next time I'll make them smaller and see if I can get away with using just buttermilk.