An Unapologetic Cookbook Buttermilk Biscuits
I made them square for a reason
This recipe has some steep competition.
Time:1 hour 3 minutes
Difficulty: 2/5
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
A while ago, I analysed Joshua Weissman’s recipe for Popeyes Bisciuts. I really enjoyed those, so when I saw this recipe in his first cookbook I was intrigued. I was slightly worried that they might be the exact same recipe minus the honey butter, but after comparing them I saw they were indeed different. Given that the Popeyes biscuit recipe got a 10/10, I have high expectations for this one.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
A very simple ingredient spread
These are pretty basic biscuits as far as the ingredients go, so nothing is particularly key. It is important that you keep the butter as cold as possible leading up to baking, as melted butter won’t produce layers correctly. Nothing was omitted.
Tools:
Food Processor
Cooking Review:
Cutting Butter: 8 minutes
So that the butter can be as cold as possible before baking, I cut the butter into cubes before putting them in the freezer until needed.
The most important part of a biscuit
Making Dough: 25 Minutes
I added the dry ingredients to the food processor and pulsed to combine. Next, I added the butter and pulsed until the butter was cut into pea sized pieces. I proceeded to transfer the dry ingredients to a large bowl and add the buttermilk. I added two extra tablespoons of buttermilk to get the dough to come together more before kneading the dough together and rolling it out and doing a series of folds.
Rest and cut: 11 minutes
I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator to rest for 5 minutes. I then rolled it out into a rectangle and used a bench scraper to cut out 12 biscuits. The recipe says to use round cutter to cut out biscuits. I opted to just cut out squares of dough instead so I wouldn’t have to reconstitute the dough to get more round biscuits which never turn out as nice.
Baking: 20 minutes
I brushed the tops of the biscuits with buttermilk and baked them for 18 minutes. I let them cool slightly before giving a taste.
Analysis:
Well, these certainly are different than the Popeyes biscuit. These are also, not as good. They are soft and tender with a crisp top, which was nice. I just think they could use more flavor, whether it be from salt or sugar. The buttery flavor isn’t as intense as I’d like, which could be because of the butter, but unless you use a much more expensive butter, I don’t think you’d get much more. I’m giving this recipe a 7/10. I think this would be a good biscuit to make a sandwich out of, soak up a sauce, or clean up a plate. It’s not really a biscuit I’d want to eat all by itself. Maybe if I hadn’t tried his other biscuit recipe, maybe wouldn’t be as disappointed, but the result would still be the same.
