Topic: Why Most of America Is Terrible at Making Biscuits

[Ken (OP)]

Why Most of America Is Terrible at Making Biscuits

For 25 years in Georgia, I watched my mom make the same batch of six light, fluffy biscuits for breakfast almost every Sunday. Then I moved to New York, never to see a light, fluffy biscuit again. I arrived in the city in 2011, just in time for southern food to get trendy outside its region, and for three years, I bit into a series of artisanal hockey pucks, all advertised on menus as authentic southern buttermilk biscuits.

With every dense, dry, flat, scone-adjacent clump of carbohydrates, I became more distressed. I didn’t even realize biscuits could be bad, given how abundant good ones were in the South. Even my mom, a reluctant-at-best cook, made them every week without batting an eyelash. The recipe she used had been on my dad’s side of the family for at least three generations.

...  To make a good biscuit, “you want a flour made from a soft wheat,”

[Skhilled]

I've seem that flour up here before but have never tried it. And I'm sure as hell not paying that kind of money for it. I'll stick with King Arthur brand. It has never steered me wrong. If you Google 'soft red wheat flors' you'll see other brands available that are a bit cheaper.

I Googled white Lily and found there a lot of controversy over it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18flour.html

I also found this one which did a taste test between WL and KAF:

https://backtothebasics101.com/product/soft-red-wheat-flour/

[Skhilled]

I forgot to say that a lot of people don't use a light hand when kneading. They also twist when using a biscuit cutter instead on just pushing down. the twisting helps to seal the edges more and will make for denser biscuits.

[Ken (OP)]

I forgot to say that a lot of people don't use a light hand when kneading. They also twist when using a biscuit cutter instead on just pushing down. the twisting helps to seal the edges more and will make for denser biscuits.

... never thought about it in that way, but it sounds logical.

[Skhilled]

I learned a number of years ago when I was a lot more into baking.