Nothing goes quite so far to dispel the ignorant hillbilly stereotypes lobbed at rural Appalachians as their skills with baking.
From the unspoken chemistry behind salt rising bread, to the countless iterations of corn breads and cakes, or the endless larder full of cakes, pies, crumbles, buckles, crisps, sweet and savory rolls, the mastery of nearly every southern cook has over pastry and baking is unmatched.
In much of Appalachia, certainly in southeast Tennessee where my ancestors are from, cornbread was king. Corn could be grown successfully in the rocky hollers of the foothills where wheat could not, so for early settlers, wheat flour was often a small luxury. It required either cash or trade and often a long trip to the nearest town to acquire.
It’s odd to me, sometimes then, that biscuits somehow became synonymous with the food culture of this part of the South. Maybe because the special occasions that often came along with biscuits before wheat flour became more easily attainable brought extra joy to the table when they could be had every day.
It’s because of the skill of southern American cooks that we have what we know now as biscuits gracing our tables. The word biscuit derives from an old Roman word which described a dry hunk of salt and flour that were given to soldiers as part of their rations. They were pretty much bullet proof against spoilage and were a lightweight and calorie dense, if not terribly desirable, source of food for those who were far from the comforts of home.
The same habit made its way north. The name changed to hard tack and was a twice baked, shelf stable brick of dough that British sailors were given as part of their rations. They were so unpopular as food that they were often used to write letters home when paper was scarce.
It’s not unlikely that the poor Scots, English, Germans, and Irish, who came to America with very little, knew hard tack well, perhaps even had it on their voyage over. But as they settled the land and became more prosperous, and as French colonizers who brought their enslaved black cooks to America with them, cooks who were often trained in French cooking techniques, a biscuit rescue mission emerged.
Biscuits stopped being the dense, unappealing, dead blocks of last resort nutrition to light, often flaky, delicate and flavorful delights.
Yeasted breads had a hard time gaining a foothold in the south. The flour that grew well in its hot climate was lower in protein and not well suited for breads than needed more structure. Yeast, also, was expensive and very hard to care for. It was not yet sold dry, and the active, fresh yeast would spoil or become moldy before it could be used up.
In the 1800s, baking soda became commercially available. This made the production of biscuits & other quickbreads a very simple and cheap addition to the dinner table. Combine it with some flour, now produced by large mills and widely available, and things most rural southerners had around the homestead, like eggs, butter or lard, and buttermilk, and a southern staple is born.
There are many distinct styles of biscuits these days, but we’re going to focus on the three most common: drop, angel, and the classic buttermilk biscuit.
One biscuit you won’t find a recipe for here is The Southerner’s.
Our biscuit had a rocky start. Shortly after we opened, the price of butter skyrocketed and the recipe had to be retooled. We were also so much busier than we thought we’d be and needed to figure out how to make our biscuits in large quantities to keep pace, which meant we could no longer fold and roll them by hand. We had to formulate a dough that could be sent through a commercial sheeter. This ended the rolling pin era at The Southerner very abruptly, and our biscuits were no longer flavored with the tears of our overwhelmed bakers.
One thing we were not willing to do in the wake of all this, was lower our standard. We are proud to say that our biscuit is as beloved, if not more beloved, by our patrons as the fried chicken, and that’s because we shifted laterally or upward when we had to shift gears. When the dust settled, our laminated style biscuit was more akin to croissant or danish dough than a dough you may find in a southern home kitchen. It’s unlike any other biscuit I’ve ever encountered.
And it is still very much a labor of love.
In the ten plus years we’ve been making biscuits, there still are only a handful of people who know how to make them very well. It takes weeks to train new recruits to make them properly and many of them never make the cut.
In the years before opening The Southerner, I was bewildered why, even in the south, it was difficult to find a restaurant that served a home made, laminated biscuit. Lots of places served frozen or industrial packaged doughs so laden with conditioners and low quality ingredients they barely passed as food, and most places that did tackle home made biscuits made drop biscuits, which are much simpler to produce.
I got my answer the hard way.
By the time we had the panicked idea that maybe we wouldn’t be able to make this whole biscuit thing work given the intensity of the work involved, the word was out. Everyone loved them and there was no turning back.
During the busy summer season, we often make over a thousand biscuits a day, each one made with real food, by a real person with real skill. We now have a large, temperature controlled section of our kitchen known as “Biscuitland,” which has a singular purpose.
A baker is back there, essentially from the minute we come in in the morning, often until well after the last plate has been cleared from the dining room at night, practicing this noble art.
Some Biscuit Basics.
It’s crucial to use the proper flour for biscuits. The southern, soft winter wheat which is low in protein is a must to attain that yielding, soft texture. Higher protein flour will yield tough, chewy biscuits. In the south, White Lily brand is everywhere. Luckily, it’s not so hard to find up north anymore either. Many southerners also opt for “self rising” flour, which already has leavener added to it in an appropriate amount. It’s a step saver, and one less variable to worry about, so why not.
The fat, or shortening, is worth considering carefully as well. The three principal players are butter, vegetable shortening, and lard.
Butter produces the best flavor. Its irreplaceably rich dairy flavor pops, but butter has some moisture in it, which means it will encourage gluten development and won’t always make the most tender biscuits.
For the most tender, supplest textured biscuits imaginable, lard or vegetable shortening are the go tos.
Lard was used ubiquitously in so many southern staples, but it was a somewhat scarce resource, especially for families that survived mostly on what they raised themselves, especially the lard reserved for baking.
Fall was hog killing season in the foothills. Old time southerners raised varieties of hog that barely resemble modern industrial hogs. They were raised to an older age and had plenty of fat to be rendered for all kinds of uses, including cooking, and candle and soap making. So the hogs you raised yielded all the lard you had until next fall. The most prized fat for baking delicate things like biscuits came from leaf lard, which surrounds the organs, and has a softer, creamier texture, and a very neutral, pork free flavor. Households with a dedicated baker in the kitchen would most certainly have rendered the leaf lard separately from the rest, which of course meant there wasn’t a lot to last the whole year.
Commercial, hydrogenated vegetable shortening was a god send to many time-strapped southern cooks. Suddenly, there was a shelf stable, cheap alternative to lard that was available year round without the herculean amount of work it took to butcher hogs. It worked very well to produce very flaky, tender pastry and biscuits, but unlike butter, had little flavor, and in the worst cases, an off putting aroma or flavor. We have also since learned that hydrogenated fats pose some significant health concerns, so for many home bakers, it’s fallen out of favor.
Some cooks have tried to get the best of both worlds by combining butter for flavor and lard or vegetable shortening for tenderness, but for me it seems like this just ends up blunting the benefits of both.
Remember when using butter to choose what is nowadays described as “European” style butter, as opposed to “sweet cream” style. A sweet cream butter is not, in fact, sweetened. What it refers to is that the cream the butter is churned from is fresh and not cultured, or put through a lactic fermentation. This results in a butter that has a little more or a fresh milk flavor, but ultimately lacks complexity and depth, and has a lower butterfat (higher moisture) content.
A butter that is said to be European in style is made from cream that is first fermented to become what we might think of as sour cream or creme fraiche before churning. This process makes a butter with a more complex flavor and a lower moisture content, which again, is important when trying to curb gluten development.
The name “European style” can be a little shrug worthy, considering that southerners who made their own butter, and who relied heavily on buttermilk for baked goods and other parts of their diet, have made butter in this fashion for generations. Putting cream out to undergo lactic fermentation was called clabbering in Appalachia, and, in the days before refrigeration, was a crucial step in preserving milk and cream, especially during the hot, humid summer months when it would easily spoil in its natural state.
Buttermilk is the preferred liquid medium in most biscuit recipes. Buttermilk was usually never in short supply at homes that raised dairy cows, so it found its way into baked goods with some regularity. Buttermilk is essentially fat free, protein rich, and loaded with amino acids, which manifest tons of umami. The delicious lactic tang is also highly functional.
Quickbreads like biscuits are leavened with baking soda. Baking soda is alkaline, and alkalines, as you may remember from middle school science class volcanoes, reacts viscerally when introduced to an acid, like those present in buttermilk. Unlike yeast risen breads, which require time to ferment, this reaction is instantaneous. It is intensified when the heat of an oven is added to the mix, and the chemical reaction between the acid and base produces carbon dioxide that fills the nooks and crannies of your dough, pushing outward and causing your biscuits to rise.
Remember that when substituting milk or cream, which contains very little acid, it’s necessary to use baking powder, which is baking soda with an acid, usually cream of tartar, already added to create the chemical reaction.
Personally, I see very little difference in flavor or richness when biscuits are made with milk or cream, and those wonderful flavor and aroma compounds present in buttermilk are very much missed.
How you handle your dough is also of profound importance. Try to remember that gluten, which is formed when doughs are agitated by mixing or rough handling, is the enemy. Gluten is great for yeast driven doughs which need a strong structure to stand up to long fermentations, but for tender pastries, do your best to handle your dough as little and as gently as possible. Remember when combining ingredients to stop mixing a bit before everything is completely incorporated, as the remainder will eventually be worked in during shaping, and to use gentle hands the whole time.
Check our April newsletter for part two of Biscuit Suite…