Biscuit Bread

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.
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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.

 
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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!