Pearl s of Wisdom #10 (Genius Secrets to Carla Hall’s Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits)

Shiver me timbers! This covers it all; Useful Information, Old Indian Trick, and handy tip. I did not include the recipe, as this will work with any biscuit recipe.

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Rub a couple tablespoons of shortening (or neutral oil, in a pinch) into the dry ingredients before bringing out the butter. This makes for extra-crispy edges. But it also coats the flour's proteins, preventing them from linking up and forming extra gluten—aka keeps the biscuits tender and harder to overwork. (Carla is a big Shirley Corriher baking science fan, too.)

Grate in a frozen stick of butter—either by hand with a box grater or in a food processor—to make consistent pockets of butter to puff up and make flaky layers, without needing to know exactly how the dough should feel. Double genius: Dunk the stick of butter in the flour at the beginning (and any time it starts to get slippery).

Carla loves thick, rich, whole-milk buttermilk, but if you can only find low-fat (or none at all), make a substitute with enough fat to get the job done: whole milk (or low-fat buttermilk) plus sour cream (or yogurt), in roughly equal proportions. It should be a little thicker than heavy cream. That vinegar-plus-milk hack won’t cut it here.

Make your batter wetter than you think it should be. Bat it around in a thin coat of flour, like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, to keep it from sticking. Then pat in a few loose turns like you’d fold a letter, a much more relaxed version of puff pastry.

A hollowed-out can is a better makeshift biscuit cutter than a drinking glass because it lets the air escape out the top (and the biscuits, not stuck in a vacuum, gently slide out the bottom).

After cutting the biscuits, flip them over on the sheet pan. That cutter-pinched edge being on top yields an extra 1/8 to 1/4 inch of height, since the rest of the biscuits below the pinch can rise unimpeded.

Bake your biscuits spaced-out on a buttered sheet pan (not parchment) for extra-crispy bottoms and crunchy edges all around.

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Confiscated from:

Google Genius Secrets to Carla HallsFlaky Buttermilk Biscuits Food 52