December 28, 2009 | Chickens in the Road

Archive for December 28th, 2009

Dec
28

I’m slightly on a biscuit craze due to my biscuit deprivation during the Great Power Outage of 2009. Drop biscuits are a sort of biscuit cheat–cutting out the cutting out (and rolling out and so on). It saves a little mess, and a little time. It makes a bit of a messier-looking biscuit (more rustic), too, but it gets that biscuit in your belly that much faster! And when you’ve been under biscuit deprivation, that’s all that matters.

Here’s how I make drop biscuits using my homemade Quick Mix recipe (and I’ve set out the entire from-scratch recipe just in case you aren’t a biscuit mix devotee). You can make almost any biscuit recipe variation into drop biscuits simply by increasing the milk.

Try all my Quick Mix recipes here.

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How to make Drop Biscuits:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, lard, or (softened) butter
1 1/3 cups milk

Note: To use a baking mix, replace first 5 ingredients with 2 cups baking mix.

Place first 5 ingredients (or 2 cups baking mix) in a large bowl and work in the shortening, lard, or butter with a pastry cutter then pour in the milk. Drop biscuits are all about the extra milk!

Spoon biscuit dough into a lightly greased pan or onto a baking sheet. I’m using a cast iron skillet here, with a little bacon grease. My mother always used to dip (rolled and cut out) biscuits in a cast iron skillet after frying bacon, flipping to coat each side with extra flavor, then put them on a baking sheet. (Yum.)

Bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. These biscuits are moist, so they take a little longer to bake. Your actual bake time will vary depending on the size you make your biscuits and even the type of pan used. Always keep an eye on biscuits while they’re baking!