Baking the perfect biscuit

Here’s the thing, if you ask ten people what makes the perfect biscuit, you will likely get ten different responses. Buttery, flakey, soft, fluffy, crumbly, warm, these are some of the main words I would hear when I asked the question, “What is the perfect biscuit?” So I set out to learn all I could about biscuits and what really does make them one of the most comforting foods, especially here in Savannah.

I scoured endless cookbooks dating back as far as I could and found recipes as far back as the founding of Savannah. And let me tell ya, biscuits have as complicated a history as the history of our country. There are unique elements to a biscuit you might have in Georgia versus a biscuit from North Carolina or Massachusetts, a biscuit from a coastal city versus a mountain city. Should you use butter, shortening, or lard. Do you use an all-purpose flour, bread flour, or of course White Lily flour? The type of baking powder versus making your own baking powder?  Cold butter, room temperature butter? Do you roll them, cut them, reuse the scrapes? There are truly endless approaches to making biscuits, so I tried baking them all!

I baked buttermilk biscuits, cathead biscuits, angel biscuits, butter swim biscuits, French biscuits, bakers biscuits…basically a lot of biscuits with all the variations of ingredients possible. So what did I learn about making the perfect biscuit? It really does come down to what you prefer and the type of biscuit you are used to eating.

The one universal thing I found regardless of the type of biscuit, is that it does matter how much flour you use when working your biscuits and how much you handle the dough. Too much of either always results in a dry biscuit that ends up flatter and dense. Aside from that, a good biscuit can come from a combination of almost any of the ingredients.

So how did I land on the perfect biscuit for Community Oven? I had a few top criteria that I wanted to ensure. First, it couldn’t be too fussy. I wanted our biscuits to be something you could imagine coming out of your grandma’s kitchen, or something you might try to make yourself. I wanted them to feel like home.

And since our goal is community support, it is important our biscuits are just as delicious warm out of the oven, or if you ate them two or three days later. I wanted a biscuit that you could enjoy plain, with butter, jam, or as a sandwich. OH! And speaking of biscuit sandwiches. A good biscuit sandwiched with a slice of pan-fried ham…I have no words! Ham biscuits were absolutely the most common recipe I came across, and wow, there really is nothing like it.

In summary, a Community Oven biscuit is simple, humble, and one you can dress up or eat plain. And of course, they make the perfect ham biscuit sandwich. We use all butter and two leavening agents, pat out the dough, and cut it with a cutter. And yes, we do reuse the scraps.