There are an almost endless number of biscuits recipes, each with their own tips and tricks for improving different elements of the baked good, but ultimately they're all after the same thing: a flaky, burnished biscuit that comes out of the oven buttery and tall. That height, the way the dough puffs up and creates flakiness and layers, is often an indicator of a great biscuit. But it's difficult to know exactly what contributes to that stature. If your biscuits aren't reaching the great heights that you'd like them to, these five tips will help you get there.
Don't overwork the dough.
When it comes to isolating elements that help build height in a biscuit, how you work the dough is probably the most commonly overlooked. With tender pastries like pie crust and biscuits, you're trying to develop as little gluten as possible in the dough, which keeps your treats from becoming tough. Working with very, very cold ingredients is helpful, as is working quickly to make sure the heat from your hands doesn't melt the butter.
Many home biscuit makers are looking for a uniform dough. (An understandable instinct). However, your biscuit dough should be uneven and barely stay together — that's what will help create those airy pockets of buttery goodness.
Embrace stacking.
In biscuit-making, height and flakiness go hand in hand. Why? Because the layers of butter that get compressed and stacked as you build your biscuits are what create those flakey biscuit bits, and they also create steam in the oven — which helps the biscuits to expand as tall as possible.
Most biscuit recipes will tell you to fold or stack the dough in on itself once or twice, rolling it out in between stacking. If your favorite recipe isn't yielding the height that you'd like to see, consider adding an extra fold or two, which will create more layers. I've found that four folds is a good number: Any more than that and the biscuits can actually get too tall and flop over onto their side.
Go for clean cuts.
Whether you're making round or square biscuits, be sure you're using a knife or biscuit cutter, and that you're not twisting as you cut. It's important to create a clean cut that won't smoosh those outside layers onto one another, as that will bind the layers together and inhibit the puffing that creates height.
Bake them close to each other.
Often in baking, recipes will instruct you to place items far enough away from each other that they won't touch. Biscuits are an exception to this rule: Placing them close to one another on your baking sheet actually helps them push each other up, as they impede each other from spreading outward and instead puff up skywards.
Keep the oven hot.
When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out. Be sure your oven is fully preheated (depending on your recipe, you'll be looking at a temperature between 425 and 475 degrees Fahrenheit), and use an oven thermometer to make sure the temperature inside the oven is the same as the one the oven display says.
Finally, resist the temptation to open the oven part way through baking. Doing so will let a significant portion of heat out and can cause your biscuits to fall. Instead, keep an eye on them through the window in your oven, and wait to take them out until they're bronze, flakey and sky-high.
Basically, you pat the dough out into a rectangle, then fold it up into thirds (like you're folding a letter to put in an envelope), then repeat that process. This trick applies to scones too. This step ensures your biscuits will bake up tall, with distinct layers of flaky goodness.
The secret to excellent biscuits is COLD BUTTER. Really cold. Many times the biscuit dough gets worked so much that the butter softens before the biscuits even go in the oven. Try cutting the butter into small pieces and stick back in the fridge pulling out only when ready to incorporate into the dough.
Knead and Roll: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly. Roll the dough into an even sheet that's about ½-inch thick. Cut and Bake: Use a lightly floured biscuit cutter to cut out the biscuits.
While biscuits receive some leavening power from chemical sources — baking powder and baking soda — the difference between serviceable and greatness comes from the extra rise that steam provides. In order to generate steam, the oven must be set at a minimum of 425 degrees for at least 10 minutes prior to baking.
The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.
The heavy cream adds flavor to the biscuit by adding a little more fat and helps hydrate the dough. The extra fat in the heavy cream is helpful because buttermilk in stores is often “low-fat” buttermilk.
Across all temperatures, the biscuits made with the egg were decidedly taller (and, in my view, more beautiful). They were less fragile, with a doughier moistness that the all-butter biscuits were missing.
Brush the biscuits with milk, to enhance browning. Place the pan of biscuits in the refrigerator while you preheat your oven to 425°F, or for about 20 to 30 minutes. This short chill will help the biscuits maintain their shape while baking.
Just as important as the fat is the liquid used to make your biscuits. Our Buttermilk Biscuit recipe offers the choice of using milk or buttermilk. Buttermilk is known for making biscuits tender and adding a zippy tang, so we used that for this test.
Now place the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to 3/4 inch thick. (note, if at any point the butter softens and it becomes hard to work with, refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes or until it firms up a little.) Using a biscuit cutter (3-inches in diameter), cut as many biscuits as you can.
DO NOT OVERMIX. Dough will not be completely smooth. Gather dough into a ball and knead on lightly floured surface quickly and gently, about 6 to 8 times, just until no longer sticky. The kneading is meant only to flatten the pieces of fat into flakes, not to blend fat completely with the flour.
Turns out when you put supremely cold or frozen dough in the oven, “it causes the water in the butter to evaporate more quickly,” said Fields. “When water evaporates it goes up, as steam, so it takes all the structure [of the biscuit] with it.”
In fact, it came together almost too much. If you overwork biscuit dough you run the risk of getting tough and dense biscuits. With the shortening being so sticky itself, even when chilled, it made it hard to retain any sort of looseness in the dough.
Here's the moment the curtain drops - the 'shortness' in the name doesn't come from the size of the biscuit, or even its texture, it comes from the large amount of butter content in the dough, making it slightly tricky to work with.
Introduction: My name is Tish Haag, I am a excited, delightful, curious, beautiful, agreeable, enchanting, fancy person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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