2 Ways to Make Biscuits, Good Old Fashioned Southern Cooks

in the oven while I do some hand-rolled biscuits. Then I'm gonna do some cutout biscuits so you can see how to make those too. And like I said, it's all about biscuit day and we're gonna have some strawberry shortcake with these in a little while. So I'm gonna go ahead, my oven's at 450 degrees and I'm gonna place these in there and go ahead and set the timer because if I don't, I'll forget about them for 20 minutes. I usually bake my biscuits about 20 minutes at 450 degrees. The darker the pan, the darker the biscuit. So if you put it in a cast iron skillet or on a cast iron griddle like this, they're gonna get darker than they will if you put them on something aluminum or lighter colored. So we're gonna start out, I'm gonna show you how to roll biscuits. Now let me say this, roll biscuits is an art. If you've never made biscuits and you wanna learn how to make biscuits, using a bowl for your biscuits and hand doing it is probably not the smartest thing to start with. You probably wanna start with cutting out your biscuits and I'm gonna show you how to do that after we make our roll biscuits. My mama made roll biscuits. She usually used sweet milk to make her biscuits. My granny cut out her biscuits with a buttermilk biscuit but today I'm using all buttermilk because that's what I like. So when you do roll biscuits, you typically have a biscuit bowl. Mama used a huge Tupperware bowl that was about that big around and had a lid on it. She never took the flour out of the bowl. So you just keep adding flour to the bowl because she made biscuits every single day. So that flour got used. So if you don't make biscuits every day or at least two or three times a week, you really shouldn't have a flour bowl and use this method for making your biscuits. If it's something you're gonna do a lot, it makes a lot of sense to use this method for your biscuits like mama did. Okay, so I'm gonna dump this white lily flour. We love our white lily. Mama used it, granny used it. All the women on my side and all the women on Chris's side of the family use white lily flour. It is a Southeastern kind of staple for the States. And so you may not be able to find it in your area. And if you can't, you can try a Kroger.com or a Walmart.com to get it. And you can try Amazon as well. Now I'm gonna dump this in my flour bowl and I could probably get by with using about half of this instead of a whole one because this is a smaller flour bowl, of course, than my mama had. And when you make biscuits this way, you wanna put your flour in the bowl and you wanna use the back of your hand and press the flour up against the bowl. I picked out this bowl the other day because it is wood, because it is deep and it has a nice angle to it so that it makes a nice well to put biscuits in. So when you choose a bowl, for one, do not, seriously, try to make these kind of biscuits the first time you make biscuits and do not try to use this as your method of making biscuits. Like I said, unless you're gonna use it a lot, then it makes sense because you don't take the flour out of the bowl. But if you pack it in there, pack it in there good, okay? Go around, pack it in there good the first time you put your flour in. And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna use about a quarter cup of shortening. Now, this is an eighth-cup scoop, so I'll put two of these in here and I'm measuring it for y'all's sake, but if I were doing these by hand and y'all weren't here, I'd just be throwing it in there like mama did. Just get me a nice glob in my hand. Now, you don't wanna use too much shortening. A lot of people use too much shortening when they make biscuits and it makes them heavier, okay? When you use this method of making biscuits, they don't rise as high as cut-out biscuits do, and that's normal. And they are a little bit softer and fluffier. So add a little bit of milk, just a little bit to start with. You're gonna wind up using about three quarters of a cup of buttermilk. And once you add some milk, you're gonna take the shortening and squeeze it through your fingers. And so you don't cut your shortening into the flour the way you would if you were making it like a cut biscuit. So I get that cut in there good to where my shortening is in pretty good, bigger pieces. That's really all it needs to be because you want your shortening to be in about pea-sized pieces regardless of what kind of biscuit you're making for your biscuits to rise and be pretty. So I added a little bit more buttermilk. And now all you're going to do is take your hand, because we have that flour packed in that bowl good, and you're gonna go around the edges and let some of that flour gradually blend in to your biscuit dough. Isn't that pretty? All there is to it. Now this is an easy way to make a biscuit, but you've got to really get some flour in there. I'm gonna knock some off the top a little bit. So I'm just not taking it off the bottom. And you can squeeze it a couple of times to get a little bit off the bottom so that you're not just twirling the top around and it's not getting down in there too. That sounds kind of crazy, but that's just how it is. Now, as it starts getting thick, or your hands, of course, are gonna get a little bit, the dough's gonna be a little thicker on your hands, and you can start just pushing it together. And once it gets to be about just really sticky and want to cling to your hands more, you really got enough flour in it for the kind of biscuits, I'm sorry, I'm hoarse, that we're making today. And all you can see, we got some nice biscuit dough. I've kind of just pulled some of it off my hands. You know, just clean your hands up as good as you can. And now we're gonna start rolling them, and we're gonna put them right here on this plate. Now I'm gonna grab a little bit of shortening and put it on our plate. I got a little extra, so I'm just gonna lay it right there because I'm gonna make some biscuits in a minute over there. And what you're going to use is your hands, and you're gonna roll these biscuits. You're gonna pinch it off like that, put it in your hands, use the thumb, and push it across the bottom like that, and roll, and roll, and roll, until you get it nice and smooth on the top, or you can flip it upside down if you want to, and put it on your pan. And that's the way you do it, just simple. You can make them big, you can make them little. I got big hands, so I can make a bigger biscuit. So we're just gonna roll these up real quick, throw them on this, get them in the oven. Mama would always take her little fingers and push the tops on them. So some people call these rolled biscuits, some people call them pinch-off biscuits, some people just call them biscuits, because that's the only kind of biscuits Mama ever made. And like I said, one side of my family made them like this, and the other side of the family cut them out. So your Mama, I'm sure she did one or the other. At our house, Mama made biscuits every single day. So it made sense for her to have a bowl of flour that she would continually use to make her bread every day. And Mama fed four kids, so she made a lot of biscuits. We had biscuits with spaghetti even. I mean, that was our bread. Mama didn't buy, and she didn't make a lot of yeast bread. She didn't buy a lot of bread, except for some loaf bread. So when we had spaghetti and stuff like that, we had biscuits with it. That's just how we were raised. And I'm teaching you two ways of making biscuits today, so that you can be reminded of how your Mama made them if she rolled them, and so that you can make them for your family. And if you don't have a lot of experience, you can use the cutout method, which I'm about to show you as well. Now, when you're finished with your flour, you're gonna see that you shouldn't have a bunch of dough in the bottom of it, if you did it right. And you would just set this to the side and use it again. Now, Mama, like I said, had a lid for hers. So if you're doing this at home and you don't have a lid, just put some foil or something on top of it and pull it out every day. And get a bowl that's big enough that you're gonna be able to use it over and over and be able to store it somewhere that you feel comfortable doing that. Now, I'm going to rinse my hands off, and then we're gonna get these in the oven. Let Chris show you the ones in the oven that are cooking right now while we're making these. Chris is gonna show you those in the oven. How are they looking, Chris? Look good. Good. Now, the ones in the oven, I actually cut two or three of them out higher than the other ones, because I wanted you to see a tall biscuit and one not so tall. Because like my daddy, he liked biscuits that were crunchy better than biscuits that were just fluffy. All right, we're gonna get these in the oven. This has got eight minutes left on it, so we're gonna go ahead and place these in here, and I'll scoop the ones over that's already in here. And I'm gonna get to cutting out some biscuits. Now, I was gonna show you this pastry board because some of you don't have a wood countertop that you feel like is good enough for pastry, and you can't afford to go get a wood countertop. This thing is only about 70 bucks. It has a block on both sides. This side is a pastry side that has dimensions on it and pie pastry circles for tarts and pies to give you an idea of how big to make your crust. The other side is just a wood surface. And I have a link to this on my must-haves on Amazon. So if you would like a wood surface and you don't wanna break the bank, start over, go back down. My voice is so weird. And this side is just a plain side. So if you don't have a wood surface and you don't wanna break the bank, you can go to Amazon, and you can purchase this through a link. If you just go to our website, www.colorbellycooks.com, you're gonna see everything you see me working with here, and you can purchase things through there. Now, now we're gonna do some cutout biscuits, and they're simple, super easy. And if you're not a big biscuit maker and you haven't learned how to make biscuits, this is what you need to be using to make your biscuits. I prefer a blending fork. It's so much easier to use than the other pastry blenders that you shorten and get stuck in. And Granny always used to use a fork, but these are even better and simpler. This is an actual old-fashioned real one back from like the 40s. It's a Foley fork that I got at a antique store this week. I've been eyeballing it, not been wanting to pay for it, and I finally went back and got it for y'all. But you can get these top on our website, and they work just as good, they're wonderful. And it really helps you cut your shortening in. It's a lot easier to do it. So I'm going to make another batch of biscuits. Now this time I'm gonna use a two-cup batch. Actually, I'm gonna use a one-cup since I've got so many biscuits in the oven already. So this is a half cup. So this is a half batch of biscuits. So instead of using two cups of self-rising flour, we're gonna use one cup. And I forgot to put a pinch of soda in those biscuits in the oven we just made. You always want to put a pinch of soda in. Now it's not mandatory, but I do it because Granny did it. And it does make it taste a little bit different. I always forget something when I'm live. I get to go in and always forget something. Now here's a little shortening we had left over from greasing the pan a while ago. We're gonna put this in here. And you're only gonna need an eighth cup of shortening when you're using a one-cup of flour. And remember that I always use self-rising and I always use white lily. It's a white winter wheat. Now watch this blending fork. It takes the flour and cuts through that shortening so easy and never gets stuck between the blades like a pastry blender does. It's wonderful for your streusels and making biscuits. And when you cut your shortening in for pies or biscuits, don't make the mistake of thinking that you got to cut it in until you can barely resemble, even see the shortening anymore. It needs to be about pea size. And a lot of people cut it in and they cut it in too much. And it makes a difference, y'all, on how your biscuit rises up and gets fluffy, okay? So don't cut your shortening in in tiny little pieces. So there you have your shortening cut in. Now this is so simple and such an easy way to make biscuits, especially when you've got a blending fork. You're gonna take your milk and you're really better off not measuring it. And you're gonna add a little bit of milk at a time and mix it. And add it. And you're gonna continue to do this until all the flour is together and there's none left in the bottom of the bowl. Little bit at a time. That one's gonna do it. So you're gonna keep turning it until your bowl looks about like that. And your dough looks about like that. Simple. Now we're gonna sprinkle our surface with a little bit of flour. Get you a good sifter. One that you can hear scrape along the bottom, preferably. Because if you can't hear it scrape across the bottom, it's more for looks than it is for using it. All right, you're gonna put your dough out on the counter. And I've gotta get something to put these biscuits on. We're gonna put just a little bit of flour there. Let me grab something. Guess I'll use this iron skillet. I guess I'll use a pan this time. Now this is a big pan and I won't use but a little portion of it for my biscuits. So let me just grease one little side of it. Now if you don't wanna use shortening and you want to use butter for your biscuits, you can do that. But I'm gonna tell you, shortening makes the best biscuits. You're gonna take it and you're gonna fold it over. Not knead it, but fold it. Okay, that's the difference in making a yeast bread than making a biscuit. So you're gonna fold it about seven or eight times. And the more you fold it, the more it's gonna have little layers in your biscuits. Now, you can use a biscuit cutter and we'll show you some different ones. You can get this whole set on our site. The good thing about this set is you can cut out donuts. You can cut out one that size and then turn around and cut out the hole in the middle and make donuts if you have a whole set like this. This is an old-fashioned antique biscuit cutter. And let me show you what I used today. I think it's still over here in the, oh, here it is. Today, I used an old can. It's just from Vienna sausages. And you just turn it over, put a couple of holes in the bottom of it if you can't afford to buy some biscuit cutters. Instead of using a glass or a little juice glass or something like that, just get you a little tin can, whether it's from chilies or Vienna sausages or potted meat and use it, put some holes in the top of it and it makes a good biscuit cutter. Now, let me say this, when you're cutting biscuits out, our biscuits are done. Let's get them out of the oven. Now, these biscuits are done and those biscuits in there that we rolled are still cooking and you can see how pretty they look. And when I make biscuits, I like to flip them upside down so that they don't sweat on the bottom. I do the same thing with my cornbread. Granny always did it and we do it as well. So we're gonna let these sit there for a minute. We're gonna make a strawberry shortcake with these in just a second. Let's finish this up. I know it's taken me a minute, but we gotta have time for the biscuits to cook. And I'm giving you a lot of good, useful information when you cut out biscuits. If you want them to rise, for one, you fold them quite a few times, like you saw me do. Then you don't twist it. You just push it down. And you want the holes in the top of your biscuit cutter because they allow it to breathe and continue to cut. Now, I'm gonna make those tall and then we're gonna take these that are left. I don't know what that is. And we're gonna make these a little bit not as tall. But if you've never made a biscuit, this is the easiest way to make a biscuit, period. So don't try to get you a biscuit bowl and a flour bowl and go to all that trouble unless you're gonna make them every day or a bunch. Just cut them out. This time I'm gonna take the extra dough and you can do things that are fun with it. You can roll it out for the kids or the grandkids and you make shapes out of it. We're gonna put it right here and let it bake with the rest of them. So we're gonna shape it and bake it. Simple dipple. Now, my granny would take buttermilk. I don't know why she did it, but she did. And she would wet the tops of her hands and she would wet the tops of the biscuits. She wetted them a little bit better than now. Let me put some on my hands. She used to wash her biscuits. All right, that's it, y'all. That's all there is to it. It's such an easy thing to make biscuits. If you're making them every day and you have a flour bowl, all you gotta do is grab that bowl, get to working. You'll have them ready really quick, okay? And you don't have anything to clean up. That's why women did this. You don't have to make flour surface and then scrape it up and wipe it down. You just make it right there in the bowl. Get them in the pan. Voila, it's easy. I'm gonna sit these right here for now. I'm gonna show y'all how easy it is to clean this up. And when you use any kind of flour, the best thing to do is use a cold wash rag, okay? This is not, these things aren't dirty, so I'm putting them back in my drawer right here. And then we'll throw this stuff in here. But get you a good scraper. Scrape off this surface. And then you're gonna use a cold wash rag to wipe it down. If you use a warm wash rag, that flour just gets all matty and sticky and it's harder to clean up. This has been an all-biscuit day. An all-biscuit day with Tammy, Color Belly Cooks, with our wonderful white lily flour. Hope y'all enjoyed it. We're going to make us a strawberry shortcake right quick. Now we're gonna reap the benefits of these delicious biscuits, okay? And I can use these biscuits that are in the oven and make us a chicken biscuit for supper tonight. It'll be delicious, fry up some chicken, put in those biscuits and eat some chicken biscuits. All right, I'm gonna grab a biscuit. Now I'm gonna show you the difference. These biscuits were cut out about a half inch thick and these biscuits were cut out about a quarter inch thick. So you can tell the difference in how tall they are. Oh wow, this thing's still sleeping in there. Let me turn it off, I'm crazy. So I'm gonna use the nice big fat biscuits for our strawberry shortcake. I'll put the bottom in the bowl. Now we're gonna add a little sugar because these are regular biscuits and they don't have a lot of sugar. So what we'll do to make them really good is we'll put a little pat of butter in them, sprinkle a little bit of sugar on them. Now this is what we used to have for dessert when we were kids, mama would butter some biscuits and put some sugar on them, set them over to the side after supper. Then when we got hungry later and we said we were hungry before bed or whatever, she would give us a sugar biscuit and that's exactly what we would have. That butter will melt and that sugar will melt down in there and you talk about delicious, it's delicious. We're gonna let that sit for just a minute while I finish picking up my mess and then we're gonna put strawberries on it and whipped cream and we're gonna have a treat. Now all I've done, Chris helped me, is we sliced some strawberries. When I eat strawberry shortcake, I personally like for the strawberries to be in a syrupy sauce. So what I do is we cut them thin, we put our sugar on there, we stick them in the microwave for a minute or two, then we let them cool back down and that's how we like our strawberries for our strawberry shortcake. I'm gonna grab the Cool Whip out of the refrigerator but I'm gonna show you how to eat delicious homemade strawberry shortcake out of a biscuit. So, you got extra biscuits at home? Use them for dessert? Look at that, don't that look good? Yummy! I'm glad y'all are tuning in today and enjoying your Saturday with Colored Valley Cooks where I'm teaching you to cook just like Mama did. Now we're gonna save just a little bit of the strawberries for the top. You wanna be generous, make a pretty one because they're delicious. Now I've actually got some fresh pears that I wanna cut up today and make a little bit of jelly out of. So I'm gonna put this on the top, put a couple of strawberries on top of it. Don't that look good, y'all? Woo, some good eatin' on a Saturday. So, if you haven't made breakfast, even if you have made breakfast, get in there and make you some of these homemade biscuits and have you a strawberry shortcake today. I'm gonna take a bite of this and then we're gonna grab those biscuits that are hand-rolled out of the doggone oven. I'm gonna take a bite of this and then we're gonna take those biscuits out of the oven that we hand-rolled so you can see them before we go. I'm gonna get a lot of coolant. I always get a big bite when I'm live. Mm-mm-mm, absolutely delicious. All right, these biscuits are about how mama would do them. She never did get them real dark with her rolled biscuits because when you make rolled biscuits, they're really good when they're light like this, especially if you're gonna make some gravy. You want them to be put together close so that they're fluffy and soft and I'm gonna flip them upside down. Well, I kind of made a mess, didn't I? I guess they could have stayed in there a couple of minutes longer, but they sure are pretty. And you can tell, look at that one just fell apart. You can tell how soft they are. I'm gonna show you how soft they are. Now, this is a different kind of biscuit. It's not got layers and they're always not quite as tall and sometimes they're a lot harder to stuff because they crumble a lot easier than a biscuit that you fold, okay? Sometimes you can get them to cooperate and you can half them, but lots of times you're gonna see right here, let me turn the slide on, that they wanna crumble a lot easier and it's because you don't put a lot of flour in them and you don't fold them and fold them and fold them when you make them like you do a cutout biscuit. But they're really pretty. They're very, very soft. See how soft they are? Now, look at this biscuit. This one, if you do that with, it's a little more crunchy type biscuit. You can actually just pick it up and open it up to stuff it, but this one is softer and it's a lot, you can open it, but it's so soft and more delicate. I hope I've taught you something today and I'm gonna throw those back in there for a minute. I did get about a little bit too early and you can do that. You can just throw them right back on the pan, throw them back in the oven and cook them just a hint longer if you want to. Ain't gonna hurt nothing. Don't ever think you messed something up. Just keep on going with it. Oven's still on, we'll get them a little bit browner. Y'all have a wonderful day. We'll see you next time on Color Belly Cooks where we cook like mama did.