Thread: Lard -vs- Crisco (et all)

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Tasty and old-fashioned may very well go together but they are rarely seen in the company of healthy.

Late to the thread, but OCDshaver saw what I did...

I have already been on the war path for making the perfect biscuit and will give you the end result, THE perfect biscuit. I also go on food making binges to perfect recipes, white cake, biscuits, muffins, etc.

Biscuits are basically a quick bread (chemical reaction rise vs. yeast). so you need to understand what causes quick bread to fail. The biggest cause is overworking the dough once it is wet. Every time you move a wet dough it causes gluten in the flour to release. Too much gluten release and you are using the biscuits for hockey pucks. I actually tested various levels of "dough movement" and that is part of the recipe. Needless to say, you are not the only OCD. 2nd to movement is the flour type. There has already been one response referencing a southern cook who stated using White Lilly flour. There is truth to this. If at all possible, find a "soft" flour. These are different wheat plants and there is less gluten in the flour to be released so it is more forgiving. White Lilly is one, King Arthur is another. I am sure there are more but these two are the best.

Next important thing is the wetness of the dough after you add the liquid. My recipe is really an approximation. The dough should form on its own, not crumbly, almost sticky, but not so sticky you can't work with it. This is an art, you have to get a feel for it. Depending on the humidity that day it could be more or less liquid. It is like feeling the blade on a hone to know if it is done or not. This I cannot teach.

Here is the recipe. The best version is the original script, noted substitutions are okay but try to go for original if you can.

2 cups King Arthur all purpose unbleached flour (red bag)
3 teaspoons Bakewell Cream (can use cream of tartar)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup King Arthur dry buttermilk powder (if using water as the liquid. If using real buttermilk then omit)

sift above into a bowl.

1/2 cup butter (can use crisco or other solid fat, butter is better)

mix butter into dough by hand or with a fork or other method until you get a crumbly mixture.

1 cup of water (see notes above) or buttermilk.

Turn the flour just until the dough is wet and slightly sticky (then stop mixing, no, I mean it, stop mixing the damn dough).

lightly dust a sheet of wax paper. Turn the dough onto the wax paper. Lightly dust the top of the dough ball. Make the dough ball about half flat (about half the height of a round ball).
Fold the dough in half and press down to about 1/2 the height. Do this fold and press 5 times (not 4, not 6, I am serious about this). The fifth time make the height the height you will cut the biscuits.
Cut as many as you can out of this piece. You will have to fold up the dough a couple more times to get all the biscuits obviously but try to keep this to the fewest possible. Be efficient with your cutting pattern.
The biscuits should touch each other on the edge when in the pan. This will help the rise. If you put a thumb in the top of each biscuit they will rise with a flat top and not dome when baking.
Bake 450 for 13 minutes.

A side note, Bakewell cream is the best to use, cream of tartar is okay, don't use baking powder. I have never seen Bakewell cream in any store but you can order it from King Arthur flour online. You can also order their buttermilk powder. I don't have experience with main stream store bough buttermilk powder. Finally, about the powder. I am not normally a powder/mix user but water and powder is lighter than real buttermilk so the dough is not as heavy and rises better. Buttermilk will work okay but like I said, I am giving you the perfect recipe.

If you try it, let me know how they worked for you. So far everyone who has tried this cannot beat this recipe.

Originally Posted by ericd

I have already been on the war path for making the perfect biscuit and will give you the end result, THE perfect biscuit. I also go on food making binges to perfect recipes, white cake, biscuits, muffins, etc.

Biscuits are basically a quick bread (chemical reaction rise vs. yeast). so you need to understand what causes quick bread to fail. The biggest cause is overworking the dough once it is wet. Every time you move a wet dough it causes gluten in the flour to release. Too much gluten release and you are using the biscuits for hockey pucks. I actually tested various levels of "dough movement" and that is part of the recipe. Needless to say, you are not the only OCD. 2nd to movement is the flour type. There has already been one response referencing a southern cook who stated using White Lilly flour. There is truth to this. If at all possible, find a "soft" flour. These are different wheat plants and there is less gluten in the flour to be released so it is more forgiving. White Lilly is one, King Arthur is another. I am sure there are more but these two are the best.

Next important thing is the wetness of the dough after you add the liquid. My recipe is really an approximation. The dough should form on its own, not crumbly, almost sticky, but not so sticky you can't work with it. This is an art, you have to get a feel for it. Depending on the humidity that day it could be more or less liquid. It is like feeling the blade on a hone to know if it is done or not. This I cannot teach.

Here is the recipe. The best version is the original script, noted substitutions are okay but try to go for original if you can.

2 cups King Arthur all purpose unbleached flour (red bag)
3 teaspoons Bakewell Cream (can use cream of tartar)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup King Arthur dry buttermilk powder (if using water as the liquid. If using real buttermilk then omit)

sift above into a bowl.

1/2 cup butter (can use crisco or other solid fat, butter is better)

mix butter into dough by hand or with a fork or other method until you get a crumbly mixture.

1 cup of water (see notes above) or buttermilk.

Turn the flour just until the dough is wet and slightly sticky (then stop mixing, no, I mean it, stop mixing the damn dough).

lightly dust a sheet of wax paper. Turn the dough onto the wax paper. Lightly dust the top of the dough ball. Make the dough ball about half flat (about half the height of a round ball).
Fold the dough in half and press down to about 1/2 the height. Do this fold and press 5 times (not 4, not 6, I am serious about this). The fifth time make the height the height you will cut the biscuits.
Cut as many as you can out of this piece. You will have to fold up the dough a couple more times to get all the biscuits obviously but try to keep this to the fewest possible. Be efficient with your cutting pattern.
The biscuits should touch each other on the edge when in the pan. This will help the rise. If you put a thumb in the top of each biscuit they will rise with a flat top and not dome when baking.
Bake 450 for 13 minutes.

A side note, Bakewell cream is the best to use, cream of tartar is okay, don't use baking powder. I have never seen Bakewell cream in any store but you can order it from King Arthur flour online. You can also order their buttermilk powder. I don't have experience with main stream store bough buttermilk powder. Finally, about the powder. I am not normally a powder/mix user but water and powder is lighter than real buttermilk so the dough is not as heavy and rises better. Buttermilk will work okay but like I said, I am giving you the perfect recipe.

If you try it, let me know how they worked for you. So far everyone who has tried this cannot beat this recipe.

I know that Glen specified the type of flour he had easy access to. But for things like this, I usually use KA white pastry flour. On the gluten scale, its somewhere between AP and cake flour. In the absence of pastry flour, you can sometimes soften your AP flour with a 25% mix of cake flour. I've never been a big fan of AP flour as it makes most things acceptable but usually leaves room for improvement in one form or another. I use it for things, but all purpose its not.

Will take a look tomorrow and see what I have real access to..

The wife reminded me of two stores that I need to check, that I honestly have never been inside of

King Arthur and White lily are going on the list,,, along with the Bakewell


Thanks gents getting more ideas every day

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Tasty and old-fashioned may very well go together but they are rarely seen in the company of healthy.

Originally Posted by MJC

Late to the thread, but OCDshaver saw what I did...

Funny when I was typing it, I kept thinking about that old sign that used to be in repair shops, and it occurred to me I might be sorta in the same boat hehehe

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

I know that Glen specified the type of flour he had easy access to. But for things like this, I usually use KA white pastry flour. On the gluten scale, its somewhere between AP and cake flour. In the absence of pastry flour, you can sometimes soften your AP flour with a 25% mix of cake flour. I've never been a big fan of AP flour as it makes most things acceptable but usually leaves room for improvement in one form or another. I use it for things, but all purpose its not.

I don't have any experience with KA's pastry flour but do agree with your underlying principle about going down the gluten scale just a bit. Now I am wondering what pastry flour would do for my cinnamon rolls. Maybe that will be a different thread for another day.

I lived in the south when I was younger and thought southern cooks were crazy about being adamant with their White Lilly flour. Then I got into baking and realized there is a truth to it. You can't get White Lilly this far north so I found King Arthur is in the same category. King Arthur and White Lilly all purpose flour is lower on the gluten scale than big brands like Gold Medal or Pilsbury. You can get away with their all purpose just a bit more than you can other flours.
Having said that, you can go too far to the other extreme. Cake flour which is much lower on the scale would give you a fine crumb which is not a biscuit, you would get more like a muffin texture.

It is a really long way of saying that I agree with what you said. My recommendation is to get the mixing process and the chemical reaction balanced (bakewell cream or cream of tartar and baking soda instead of baking powder) worked out first. This goes a long way to improving biscuits. After that you can test the differences in a soft all purpose flour and a pastry flour. In shaving terms it would be like getting your stropping process down first then deciding if crox or diamond paste works better.

Eric has provided two very important points.

Never buy commercial baking powder. It has additives which can alter tastes. I make my own with Cream of Tartar and Baking Soda.

Lily White has 1% more protein than regular flour. It is great for most baking. I have to find my reference book on flour. It has some specifics on flour types.

Lard, duck fat, butter, etc are all muy bueno, but they do have a flavor of their own. Plain Crisco really does not and, IMO, it does certain things better than say a comparable neutral veggie oil. I use it to fry but also to season cast iron pans. It seems to work much better than oil for me. With that said, something like biscuit can handle a more flavorful fat.

Originally Posted by JDM61

Lard, duck fat, butter, etc are all muy bueno, but they do have a flavor of their own. Plain Crisco really does not and, IMO, it does certain things better than say a comparable neutral veggie oil. I use it to fry but also to season cast iron pans. It seems to work much better than oil for me. With that said, something like biscuit can handle a more flavorful fat.

True, the fat can provide flavors but it also can affect structure. For example, if you take the same cookie recipe and use butter vs. crisco, the butter cookie will spread thin in the oven and the final cookie will be crispy. A crisco cookie will puff up and go more toward chewy. This is a result of melting temp. Butter melts faster so the cookie dough will spread before the baking powder can puff up the cookie. The crisco melts slower at a higher temp so the cookie can puff before spreading. The difference in melting temps can affect rise in a biscuit too. I don't have data to cite, but from experience I know a fat change will make changes to the final result.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Recipes would be greatly appreciated...

I have access to really good butter

We can get the hand rolled Amish or the Fresh Churned Mennonite butter here

I thought about switching to butter but very few of the "Pioneer" style recipes called for it other then as a brush on topping..

Anybody using a Cast Iron Skillet as the baking pan ??? I saw that as an option on a few of the recipes in theory it creates a more even heating and fluffier biscuits

So yes We use the cast iron skillet method with Bisquick and Lard. Feeling decadent add a little butter to the lard. Use half and half instead of milk and if you have a fresh lemon. Juice from 1/2 of one with give you the best buttermilk. Add in one extra yolk only to get a little more eggy flavor.
If you are using the cast iron in the stove already you know to pull it out about 3-5 minutes early because the inherent heat will finish them and they wont be dry. Lastly cant explain it but a broken in cast iron skillet imparts a richer flavor. Add to mixture 2 Tbs of sugar to your batter. If you have that Amish butter and go without lard. Melt the butter first about 1/2 stick and add it after all your dry ingredients, it bonds different and better.