Post by benshelpmeet on Sept 12, 2006 19:36:50 GMT -5
The differance between Self Pising Flour and All Purpose (or plain) flour is self rising contains baking powder, salt and baking soda.
To make your own Self Rising Flour
Sift together 1 cup of all-purpose flour
plus 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
This is an old Southeren Favorite!
Old Fashioned Cat Head Biscuits
Biscuits are easy. You just have to know a few tricks handed down from our grandmothers.
When I was a little girl, I watched my grandmother make biscuits many, many times. She would go to her pantry where there was a huge flour bin and her bread making bowl - one of those earthenware big brown bowls with a stripe around the top that cost an arm and a leg in antique stores today. She never measured anything, but would scoop out flour with a big tin scoop into her flour sifter that was painted white with red cherries painted on the side. Then she would sprinkle a little baking soda into the flour and sift it into the bowl.
Then she would go to the spring house and get home churned buttermilk. She would sit these things on her kitchen table that was covered in a red checked oil cloth tablecloth. Then she would get out her bucket of lard and scoop out a hunk about the size of a walnut with her fingers. My grandmother would put this lump of lard in the middle of the flour, having first scooped a hole out in the center of the flour. She poured the buttermilk into this depression in the flour and worked it and the lard into the flour.
I remember my grandmother held the bowl under one arm and mixed the dough with a twisting motion of her fingers. She never used a spoon. When the dough was mixed, she would start pinching off big pieces of dough and rolling them in the palm of her hand. Then she would place the newly formed biscuit in a pan that was blackened from many years of use. the pan would always be full of biscuits, no spaces between and if there was a little dough left, she would make it into a tiny baby biscuit and tuck it away in a small hole between the other biscuits. This would be my special biscuit.
My grandmother made it look so easy. When she was finished, her bowl was clean, her hands were clean, there was no dough or flour on her, the bowl or the table. How she managed that, I have never figured out. It was magic and as far as I'm concerned, it still is! I make a pretty good biscuit, but I've never managed to come out clean as a whistle like she did. She would place the pan in her wood cook stove oven and remove it at just the right time so that the biscuits were golden brown, never burned. Those biscuits were always light, fluffy and huge - that's why they are called cat head biscuits - because they are as big as a cat's head!
Now, how do you reproduce those biscuits today? I will give you a recipe and some pointers.
2 cups self rising flour
1 cup buttermilk
a lump of solid shortening the size of a walnut. This can be real butter, margarine, lard or solid vegetable shortening. This has to be at room temperature to blend smoothly into the dough. Do not, and I repeat, do not use a soft dairy spread - they contain so much water that they won't work for any baking purposes.
In a large mixing bowl, put the flour. Most flours today do not need to be sifted. Push the flour to the sides of the bowl to form a depression in the center. Place the shortening and a little of the milk in the center and start stirring with a big spoon. When the shortening is blended, add the rest of the milk, mixing just until blended and the dough forms a ball. The dough will be a little on the moist side.
Place wax paper on a flat surface like your kitchen table and sprinkle flour on it. Roll the dough out on the wax paper. Do not handle the dough any more than you have to - it makes the biscuits tough. The less you handle it and the more moist the dough, the better your biscuits will be. Just pat the dough gently until it's about an inch and a half thick.
Then cut out the biscuits. Do you know what I use for a biscuit cutter? I use a tin can that I cut both the bottom and top out of and removed the label. A one pound vegetable can is a good size. Cut out your biscuits and place in a greased pan. The pan can be either glass or metal, but be sure it is small enough so that the biscuits are all close together, touching - Remember, you want the biscuits to rise up, not out to the side. Another reason for this is that when the biscuits bake with their sides touching, you can pull them apart easily, but those sides will be very soft and tender, not hard and brown. This is a very important part of making good biscuits.
Bake in a hot oven 400 degrees just until the biscuits are light brown, but you are sure the dough is done through and through. No one likes a biscuit that is still doughy, but neither does anyone like a hard crust either!
You can brush melted butter on the tops of the biscuits when they are done, or before you place them in the oven. This is also a hint to keep the biscuits soft and moist. This recipe will make around 8 to 10 biscuits, depending on the size of your tin can. A variation of this recipe is to use tomato juice instead of milk. the biscuits will be red and you will love the flavor if you eat them with a slice of country ham in them! They do not rise as much as buttermilk biscuits.
At this point, all you will need is to eat the biscuits - hot right out of the oven with butter, honey, home made strawberry jam or molasses. Gourmets - Eat your heart out, country cooking rules!
"Cat-Head" Biscuits
I love these buttery biscuits (named for their relatively large size).
Yields 12 biscuits; recipe doubles easily.
15-3/4 oz. (3-1/2 cups) soft southern wheat flour, such as White Lily, or half (by weight) cake flour and half all-purpose flour; more as needed
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
5 oz. (10 Tbs.) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
Heat the oven to 450ºF. If you're measuring the flour by volume, do so by spooning it into a measuring cup and leveling it off. Put the flour into a large metal mixing bowl, add the baking powder and salt, and mix well with a whisk. Cut in the butter with two knives or a pastry blender until it's uniformly mixed in and there are no large lumps. Add 1-1/4 cups of the buttermilk, stirring with a rubber spatula until the mixture is just blended and leaves the sides of the bowl. Don't overmix. Add more buttermilk or flour only if necessary.
Dump the contents out onto a lightly floured surface. Place the fingers of both hands down inside the flour bag to coat them. Using only your fingers, lightly pat the dough together. With a floured rolling pin, lightly even out the dough to 3/4 inch thick. Using a floured metal 2-1/2-inch biscuit cutter -- not an overturned glass, which will seal the edges so they can't rise -- quickly punch out the biscuits. Don't twist the cutter in the dough (which also seals the edges). Avoid touching the dough with your hands. Gather any sgarbages, roll, and cut out more biscuits. These won't rise as high, but they'll still be quite good.
Set the biscuits, close but not touching, on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until they're lightly browned on top, 15 to 18 min. Serve at once with the ham.
Cat Head Biscuits
Most southerners grew up, as I did, eating lard biscuits -- light and flaky but seldom bigger than a silver dollar. But there exists a biscuit that we used to see only on special occasions, such as a birthday breakfast or a holiday morning. What sets these biscuits apart is that they're bigger and they're made with butter in place of the lard -- which seemed extravagant when I was a child but now seems oddly conservative.
You'll get the best results with soft southern flour. Literally soft to the touch, southern flour is made from the soft winter wheat that grows down South. It has less protein than northern flour, which means it forms less gluten and is therefore more tender. A decent substitute is to use half (by weight) all-purpose flour and half cake flour.
Southern Chocolate Gravy
2 heaping Tb of cocoa
1 cup of sugar
3 tsp of flour
4 cups of milk
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of butter
Mix the cocoa, flour, and the sugar in a pot with a fork or whisk until well blended. Add all of the other ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring .constantly, over medium heat. Continue cooking until the gravy is the desired thickness. Serve hot over cat head biscuits with lots of butter.
CHOCOLATE GRAVY AND BISCUITS
Take medium saucepan and cover bottom with oil, about 1/2 inch. Add 4 tbsp. flour and stir to make like paste. Slowly add milk, stirring slowly so not to stick. Then add Hershey's sweetened cocoa powder and stir until gravy is dark in color. Add 1 tbsp. sugar and continue stirring until gravy thickens to pudding consistency.
Place 3 cylinder roll biscuits in the oven and bake according to directions, until golden brown. Remove from oven and arrange on plates; split and top with butter. Pour chocolate gravy over and serve immediately.
Chocolate Gravy
This is a very old country recipe.
1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 Tb cocoa
3 Tb flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) margarine
Mix dry ingredients well and add milk until smooth.
Melt margarine in iron skillet. Add mixture and cook until desired consistency.
Serve over biscuits.
Chocolate Gravy for Biscuits
After group camping trips, I've had grown men come to my door and ask me to make this for them again! Kids love it. Perhaps your grandmother used to make it for you?
1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 T. cocoa
2 cups milk
splash of vanilla
Bring to a boil for 2 minutes while stirring constantly. May need to add additional milk to get to the desired gravy thickness. Serve over hot biscuits.
Chocolate Gravy
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup chocolate
2 Tbls. Flour
1/4 Cup Hot water
1 1/2 Cup milk
Make this like any other kind of gravy, my aunt served it over a biscuit for me for breakfast.
Chocolate Gravy
"That's right...chocolate gravy! Great on biscuits for breakfast!" Original recipe yield: 4 servings.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon self-rising flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, flour and cocoa powder. Add water and stir. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally until thick. Remove from heat and add butter. Serve warm.
Chocolate Gravy [adult supervision for younger children]
1 cup sugar
3 heaping table spoons flour
2 table spoons Hershey's cocoa
2 1/2 cups of water
Mix dry contents well
Add water
Bring to a boil
Boil until thick
Serve over warm biscuits
To make your own Self Rising Flour
Sift together 1 cup of all-purpose flour
plus 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
This is an old Southeren Favorite!
Old Fashioned Cat Head Biscuits
Biscuits are easy. You just have to know a few tricks handed down from our grandmothers.
When I was a little girl, I watched my grandmother make biscuits many, many times. She would go to her pantry where there was a huge flour bin and her bread making bowl - one of those earthenware big brown bowls with a stripe around the top that cost an arm and a leg in antique stores today. She never measured anything, but would scoop out flour with a big tin scoop into her flour sifter that was painted white with red cherries painted on the side. Then she would sprinkle a little baking soda into the flour and sift it into the bowl.
Then she would go to the spring house and get home churned buttermilk. She would sit these things on her kitchen table that was covered in a red checked oil cloth tablecloth. Then she would get out her bucket of lard and scoop out a hunk about the size of a walnut with her fingers. My grandmother would put this lump of lard in the middle of the flour, having first scooped a hole out in the center of the flour. She poured the buttermilk into this depression in the flour and worked it and the lard into the flour.
I remember my grandmother held the bowl under one arm and mixed the dough with a twisting motion of her fingers. She never used a spoon. When the dough was mixed, she would start pinching off big pieces of dough and rolling them in the palm of her hand. Then she would place the newly formed biscuit in a pan that was blackened from many years of use. the pan would always be full of biscuits, no spaces between and if there was a little dough left, she would make it into a tiny baby biscuit and tuck it away in a small hole between the other biscuits. This would be my special biscuit.
My grandmother made it look so easy. When she was finished, her bowl was clean, her hands were clean, there was no dough or flour on her, the bowl or the table. How she managed that, I have never figured out. It was magic and as far as I'm concerned, it still is! I make a pretty good biscuit, but I've never managed to come out clean as a whistle like she did. She would place the pan in her wood cook stove oven and remove it at just the right time so that the biscuits were golden brown, never burned. Those biscuits were always light, fluffy and huge - that's why they are called cat head biscuits - because they are as big as a cat's head!
Now, how do you reproduce those biscuits today? I will give you a recipe and some pointers.
2 cups self rising flour
1 cup buttermilk
a lump of solid shortening the size of a walnut. This can be real butter, margarine, lard or solid vegetable shortening. This has to be at room temperature to blend smoothly into the dough. Do not, and I repeat, do not use a soft dairy spread - they contain so much water that they won't work for any baking purposes.
In a large mixing bowl, put the flour. Most flours today do not need to be sifted. Push the flour to the sides of the bowl to form a depression in the center. Place the shortening and a little of the milk in the center and start stirring with a big spoon. When the shortening is blended, add the rest of the milk, mixing just until blended and the dough forms a ball. The dough will be a little on the moist side.
Place wax paper on a flat surface like your kitchen table and sprinkle flour on it. Roll the dough out on the wax paper. Do not handle the dough any more than you have to - it makes the biscuits tough. The less you handle it and the more moist the dough, the better your biscuits will be. Just pat the dough gently until it's about an inch and a half thick.
Then cut out the biscuits. Do you know what I use for a biscuit cutter? I use a tin can that I cut both the bottom and top out of and removed the label. A one pound vegetable can is a good size. Cut out your biscuits and place in a greased pan. The pan can be either glass or metal, but be sure it is small enough so that the biscuits are all close together, touching - Remember, you want the biscuits to rise up, not out to the side. Another reason for this is that when the biscuits bake with their sides touching, you can pull them apart easily, but those sides will be very soft and tender, not hard and brown. This is a very important part of making good biscuits.
Bake in a hot oven 400 degrees just until the biscuits are light brown, but you are sure the dough is done through and through. No one likes a biscuit that is still doughy, but neither does anyone like a hard crust either!
You can brush melted butter on the tops of the biscuits when they are done, or before you place them in the oven. This is also a hint to keep the biscuits soft and moist. This recipe will make around 8 to 10 biscuits, depending on the size of your tin can. A variation of this recipe is to use tomato juice instead of milk. the biscuits will be red and you will love the flavor if you eat them with a slice of country ham in them! They do not rise as much as buttermilk biscuits.
At this point, all you will need is to eat the biscuits - hot right out of the oven with butter, honey, home made strawberry jam or molasses. Gourmets - Eat your heart out, country cooking rules!
"Cat-Head" Biscuits
I love these buttery biscuits (named for their relatively large size).
Yields 12 biscuits; recipe doubles easily.
15-3/4 oz. (3-1/2 cups) soft southern wheat flour, such as White Lily, or half (by weight) cake flour and half all-purpose flour; more as needed
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
5 oz. (10 Tbs.) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
Heat the oven to 450ºF. If you're measuring the flour by volume, do so by spooning it into a measuring cup and leveling it off. Put the flour into a large metal mixing bowl, add the baking powder and salt, and mix well with a whisk. Cut in the butter with two knives or a pastry blender until it's uniformly mixed in and there are no large lumps. Add 1-1/4 cups of the buttermilk, stirring with a rubber spatula until the mixture is just blended and leaves the sides of the bowl. Don't overmix. Add more buttermilk or flour only if necessary.
Dump the contents out onto a lightly floured surface. Place the fingers of both hands down inside the flour bag to coat them. Using only your fingers, lightly pat the dough together. With a floured rolling pin, lightly even out the dough to 3/4 inch thick. Using a floured metal 2-1/2-inch biscuit cutter -- not an overturned glass, which will seal the edges so they can't rise -- quickly punch out the biscuits. Don't twist the cutter in the dough (which also seals the edges). Avoid touching the dough with your hands. Gather any sgarbages, roll, and cut out more biscuits. These won't rise as high, but they'll still be quite good.
Set the biscuits, close but not touching, on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until they're lightly browned on top, 15 to 18 min. Serve at once with the ham.
Cat Head Biscuits
Most southerners grew up, as I did, eating lard biscuits -- light and flaky but seldom bigger than a silver dollar. But there exists a biscuit that we used to see only on special occasions, such as a birthday breakfast or a holiday morning. What sets these biscuits apart is that they're bigger and they're made with butter in place of the lard -- which seemed extravagant when I was a child but now seems oddly conservative.
You'll get the best results with soft southern flour. Literally soft to the touch, southern flour is made from the soft winter wheat that grows down South. It has less protein than northern flour, which means it forms less gluten and is therefore more tender. A decent substitute is to use half (by weight) all-purpose flour and half cake flour.
Southern Chocolate Gravy
2 heaping Tb of cocoa
1 cup of sugar
3 tsp of flour
4 cups of milk
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of butter
Mix the cocoa, flour, and the sugar in a pot with a fork or whisk until well blended. Add all of the other ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring .constantly, over medium heat. Continue cooking until the gravy is the desired thickness. Serve hot over cat head biscuits with lots of butter.
CHOCOLATE GRAVY AND BISCUITS
Take medium saucepan and cover bottom with oil, about 1/2 inch. Add 4 tbsp. flour and stir to make like paste. Slowly add milk, stirring slowly so not to stick. Then add Hershey's sweetened cocoa powder and stir until gravy is dark in color. Add 1 tbsp. sugar and continue stirring until gravy thickens to pudding consistency.
Place 3 cylinder roll biscuits in the oven and bake according to directions, until golden brown. Remove from oven and arrange on plates; split and top with butter. Pour chocolate gravy over and serve immediately.
Chocolate Gravy
This is a very old country recipe.
1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 Tb cocoa
3 Tb flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) margarine
Mix dry ingredients well and add milk until smooth.
Melt margarine in iron skillet. Add mixture and cook until desired consistency.
Serve over biscuits.
Chocolate Gravy for Biscuits
After group camping trips, I've had grown men come to my door and ask me to make this for them again! Kids love it. Perhaps your grandmother used to make it for you?
1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 T. cocoa
2 cups milk
splash of vanilla
Bring to a boil for 2 minutes while stirring constantly. May need to add additional milk to get to the desired gravy thickness. Serve over hot biscuits.
Chocolate Gravy
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup chocolate
2 Tbls. Flour
1/4 Cup Hot water
1 1/2 Cup milk
Make this like any other kind of gravy, my aunt served it over a biscuit for me for breakfast.
Chocolate Gravy
"That's right...chocolate gravy! Great on biscuits for breakfast!" Original recipe yield: 4 servings.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon self-rising flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, flour and cocoa powder. Add water and stir. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally until thick. Remove from heat and add butter. Serve warm.
Chocolate Gravy [adult supervision for younger children]
1 cup sugar
3 heaping table spoons flour
2 table spoons Hershey's cocoa
2 1/2 cups of water
Mix dry contents well
Add water
Bring to a boil
Boil until thick
Serve over warm biscuits