Biscuit Blog

Biscuit Bread

3/27/2020

Hello everyone. Southern Belle Biscuit Shop is so empty without all of you. As I write, my thoughts go to my students who live all over the country who have visited me in Nashville. Especially, to my New Jersey girls, New Yorkers, and foodies from Seattle and California. You are the hardest hit right now and we all care very much and are with you in spirit. My prayer is that all of you and yours are staying in place and are healthy.

   This is a stressful time, and staying isolated at home is making food a challenge. So, this is my deal. I have to get creative in my kitchen until we come out of the other side of this. Like most of you, I can't get the food I want right now, so I'm adjusting. I'm eating different foods; canned goods and processed foods that are very practical at a time like this. I also want to limit and really eliminate having to go into a grocery store. So, I've decided I'm going to start using my ingenuity to bake and cook with what I have in my pantry.

     With that, I'm using my self rising Southern Belle Biscuit Flour to bake bread items for which it is not intended. My flour is 8 percent gluten and I need to get it up to 15 or 16 to make a bread. So I'm manipulating the flour/dough to build the gluten and tweaking ingredients that I have on hand and baking other goodies I need; like bread, crackers, cakes, pizza dough...and so on.

Below is my first attempt at baking what I'm calling "Biscuit Bread." What I dd was make it just like one of my biscuits...but put a few things I instinctively thought would make it into bread. Guys...it was super tasty.

Below are photos of the finished product and how I used the Biscuit Bread for meals. I have tasting notes and other details in the captions on each photo. Read on and you'll find the play by play on how I made the Biscuit Bread. I'm going to leave the comments section open. Let's share ideas.

So, let's hop into a time machine; and be like the homestead and plantation cooks of the first days of the South; They baked and cooked with the ingredients they had, not what they wished for and wanted.

1. Fresh from the oven, I cut a piece, buttered, and ate. It was all sorts of wonderful. The taste differed from my biscuits; it that it had a taste of yeast and the crust was super crunchy. And while the bread was baking? my kitchen smelled like a Boulangerie. Now, that's the real deal.

3. Now look at teh crumb or texture of the bread on the next day. It was more firm and fine like regular bread.

2. Hot from the oven, the crumb or texture of the bread was more like a biscuit. As for the taste? This biscuit bread could cause a bread basket fight for sure.

4. I cut a thick slice for breakfast to pan grill in butter. I prefer this method over a toaster.

5. Sliced, buttered, and toasty perfect. I like the rustic personality of this bread.

7. I made a grilled ham and cheese biscuit bread toastie with tomato soup. Delicious and the bread was the reason,

Biscuit Bread Recipe and thought process

Okay, So I needed some decent bread and I have some of my Biscuit Flour in my storeroom. My mill is closed right now. So, I'm not shipping anything out. But when I was stuck eating bad crackers and bread..and even that was in short supply so I thought, ahhHA! I'll use my biscuit flour to make these things.

I decided base my bread on the old time Bride's Biscuit Recipe. This recipe is sometimes called Angel Biscuits as well. It dates way back in the day when a Southern bride was expected to make successful biscuits..or else. The recipe has a trio of leavening agents to make sure the dough will rise in the oven; baking powder, baking soda; and yeast. I knew I wanted to use yeast so I could overwork my dough to increase the gluten content. So, using that recipe I adapted it to my Biscuit Blue Print.... I didn't measure when I made the bread..just like I don't measure when I bake biscuits. Below is my best and pretty good guess at the measurements.
For the Dough

3 cups Southern Belle Self Rising Biscuit Flour (it contains the baking powder i need )
1 1/2 cups of buttermilk. (you must have an acid liquid so add a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to milk if you don't have buttermilk)
Pinch of baking soda ( you'll mix this into the buttermilk mine is in the cornflower bowl. mixing the baking soda into the liquid distributes the baking soda evenly throughout your dough this is one of my biscuit baking tricks)
2 Tablespoons of sugar. ( I added this into the flour to feed the yeast)
2 teaspoons of kosher salt ( I added into the flour for more test)
1/2 stick cold butter chopped
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil ( I decided to add the oil as an after thought, wanting it to make the crumb of the loaf moe like bread).
1 packet of active dry yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water and 2 tsp sugar

2. I oiled the walls of my bowl with vegetable oil as well as the top of my biscuit bread dough ball and placed a warm wet tea towel over the bowl for an hour to let it rise.

4. Next I put parchment paper on my biscuit pan and buttered the paper because I wanted a tasty bottom to my bread. Then formed the dough the best I could into a loaf. No, I don't own a loaf pan and often regret not buying the cast iron loaf pan I saw at the Lodge store in Pittsburg Tennessee years ago. Next, I put this loaf in the refrigerator for the second rise. It would be slower, but I've read that the flavor of bread gets better if you do this for 24 to 48 hours.

6. I often cook an entire meal in one pan. Maybe it is the frustrated cowboy on the range syndrome.. I dunno. However, this biscuit bread is far and above better than the processed bread I've been getting in my food orders. First, store bought bread is hard to get. Second..it tastes like nothing and doesn't leave you feeling satisfied. One piece of this Biscuit Bread, and you have what I call tastebud satisfaction. Very satisfying.

8. The lack of preservatives and dough conditioners means your fresh bread will have a shorter shelf life than your frankenbread. That stuff will stay the same until Christmas. I foresee turning the end of this bread into seasoned croutons.

I sifted my flour and worked the cold butter until it was like corse meal with my hands just like with a biscuit recipe. I then added the vegetable oil and worked it into the flour along with the rest of the butter. I added in about 1/2 cup of buttermilk blended with baking soda and all the liquid yeast mixture. I blended the liquid into the dough and added more buttermilk as I needed until a dough ball formed. I lightly worked the dough..just like I do when I bake my biscuits.

3. After the dough sat rising in the bowl for an hour, I turned it out onto my pastry cloth and for the first time EVER I overworked my dough or "Kneaded" my biscuit dough to make it into bread. It was really a stress relief and I enjoyed it. :)

5. The dough did its second rise for 24 hours in the refrigerator. I took it out and let it get to room temperature, scored the top with a knife. Buttered the loaf and sprinkled it with sugar and baked it at 450 for 25 minutes

I baked the loaf at 450 degrees just like my biscuits. I timed it for 25 minutes and it worked perfectly. The temperature is higher than any bread recipe I've seen but I'm sticking to my biscuit baking roots. I was pretty thrilled when that pale hand shaped buttered raw dough loaf emerged from the oven looking like this!

How my biscuits beat the stuffing out this year's Thanksgiving Turkey!

11/23/2018

stuffing ingredients; leftover homemade biscuits, russet potatoes, celery, Plugra butter, and Bell's seasoning

on the left is biscuit/mashed potato stuffing so tasty and fabulous.. the gravy from the turkey baking in a hot cast iron skillet with bacon grease..and our turkey has crisp skin and tender tasty moist meat.

  This summer I was inspired by turkey talk at one of my biscuit classes. Three generations of Canadian women told me about a bread mashed potato stuffing they make every year for Thanksgiving. They're eyes light up telling me about this stuffing! I was excited that maybe my stuffing could finally be what I always wanted it to be -- something on par with my Mother's.

From that moment on, I plotted and planed how to translate this recipe idea to my biscuit world. At first I focused on nothing but the stuffing..then my obsession encompassed the bird as well. I thought and thought on this...

So, this was the year I was going to crack the code. I was going to realize the dream. The Hollywood turkey. The Norman Rockwell Tom. The the prize bird from the butcher window on Bob Cratchit's table at the end of A Christmas Carol.

  God bless us, everyone! It was going to happen and here is what I did ...

The Biscuit Mashed Potato Stuffing.... stale homemade biscuits, russet potatoes, celery, onion, butter & Bell's seasoning....

What you see here is my stuffing line up. A rough rule of thumb is two biscuits to one russet potato..(russets are best for mashed potatoes..the starch is just right). I cut the biscuits in half (left over biscuits from my classes this past month and stored them wrapped in the freezer more on this next blog post).. peppered them on a baking pan and put them in a 250 degree oven to dry them out.

I chopped a medium white onion and two stalks of celery sautéed them in butter/cast iron skillet

I purchased Bell's Turkey seasoning. My mother used this in her stuffing and it is the best. Stores don't carry it in the South..but his year Whole Foods did. Thank you Whole Foods.

I sautéed the onions and celery in a separate cast iron skillet with butter and added some black pepper.

the mashed potatoes are in the bottom of the bowl, then crumbled biscuits and butter onion celery mixture on top..add seasonings and mix and taste until perfect

   Next
   - Boil the cut potatoes until tender in salted water (kosher salt) drain
- Sauté the onions and celery in Plugra butter.
- Whip the mashed potatoes with buttermilk, Plugra butter, kosher salt and pepper to taste
- Crumble the stale homemade biscuits on top of the whipped potatoes
- Add the butter celery and onions to your mashed potatoes
- Dust Bell's Seasoning to taste and mixed it all together.     Taste as you go until it is just right
- Set the stuffing aside and start on the turkey

The Turkey... massaged, blown dry, stuffed, injected with sherry butter, fried in bacon grease ...

I purchased a 12 pound Butterball Turkey. I wanted it to fit in my biggest cast iron skillet.

I fried five pieces of bacon in the cast iron and reserved the bacon for my BLT deviled eggs. The bacon grease was left to fry and then bake the turkey later.

     I took the bird out of the fridge to get the temperature down before stuffing and baking. During that time I would massage the turkey (no kidding) while in the wrapper.   Why, you ask? To tenderize the meat. I do this for my famous fried hot chicken and it works. After taking the wrapper off and removing , the gizzards and neck I rinsed the bird well and salt ( Kosher) and peppered the turkey inside and out.

- Next, I blew the skin of the turkey dry with my blow dryer. I do this also with my fried chicken.. dry skin is KEY
   to CRISP skin! It took about 10 minutes.

- Preheat your oven to 400

- Stuff the turkey with the mashed potato biscuit stuffing tie it off secure

- Melt butter mixed it with dry sherry and inject turkey; in the legs and breast

- Reheat large cast iron skillet with bacon fat to red hot.. Place the turkey breast side up in the sizzling skillet. Use
     a pastry brush to brush the top of the bird with the hot bacon grease.

- Place your creation into a hot 400 degree oven. After 20 minutes, turn the temperature down to 325 and bake
      for a total to 4 hours uncovered. Use a meat thermometer to double check that the meat is cooked. 165 is done.
I always go a bit higher to 170 or 180.

I did not cover , baste, or do a thing to the turkey once it was in the oven.

Final Turkey and Biscuit Stuffing thoughts.... and what I'll do different next time

The Turkey I loved how my Turkey and Biscuit Stuffing turned out. . Besides the turkey being beautiful with crisp skin, the meat was moist, tender, and so tasty, it continued to be so the next day for leftovers as well. I was really surprised the left over meat wasn't dry the next day, that's when I knew I was on to something. Also, I enjoyed the ease that once the turkey was in the oven, that was it until time to take it out.

  The Biscuit Mashed Potato Stuffing was devoured - and that is the real test. It was almost as good as my mom's..and I'll take that. The only thing I'll change next year, is I'll add about three whole wheat biscuits in addition to what I did this time to add more texture. I'll also add a bit more Bell's seasoning to the mashed potato biscuit mixture to almost "over seasoned." Why? because the stuffing tasted perfect in the bowl, but after baking in the bird it lost a little of its punch. But this is nit picky stuff here, but you have to build on a first time recipe experience like this.

   The gravy was a bonus. When I saw those drippings in the cast iron skillet I had to whip up a gravy. Some of the stuffing was stuck to the bottom of the pan with the turkey and bacon drippings. I creamed a tablespoon of butter with flour and thickened the drippings then added whole milk and whisked it until the right thickness. I added black pepper to taste. It was amazing and reheated fine in the microwave for left overs the following days. Just like in my class.. NO GRAVY MIXES..OR GOD FORBID..CANNED GRAVY... ridiculous stuff. We do it homemade. :)

write me my friends with any questions about this recipe or biscuit baking in general.

My Biscuit thoughts..... Maryann Byrd