Cooking For Engineers

[Guest]

Besides the density issue when converting flour weights to volumes, one also has to consider humidity. I need much more liquid to make my biscuits in my arid climate (especially in winter) than I used when I lived at humid sea level. I've also read that the wheat variety and quality used to make one's flour can effect both density and moisture content. So don't obsess about "correct" conversions - learn to do adjust your ingredients to achieve the correct dough texture.

[Fred Rogers]

Lovely biscuits. I'm sure they are delicious. My mother always insisted that her biscuits had to be made using White Lily Flour and Crisco for the shortening. She cut the shortening into the flour using her fingers. The results were wonderful biscuits. I was never able to master the art of cutting the shortening in with my fingers. I prefer the pastry blender. I don't thing it matters much which technique you use: it's the result that counts.

[Kath]

I just recently bought leaf lard from Heritage Foods USA. http://store.heritagefoodsusa.com
It cost $39.00/5# plus shipping. The surprise was that the leaf lard was the unrendered lard. So, I have now learned how to render lard! It was actually very easy (low and slow) in my crockpot. I now have lots of snowy white leaf lard to make biscuits, pie crust, etc. Since I was paying shipping anyway, I ordered their Berkshire pork chops. So now I am in heaven.

[Jim Cooley]

Kath,

Michael turned me onto leaf lard for pie crust. It's wonderful stuff.


It's quite a bit cheaper to make at home if your butcher can get it.

See my note here

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=22694#22694

[Susan]

Good recipe. I don't use biscuit cutters, just cut the large rectangle of dough into a grid of smaller rectangles - it's easier and all biscuits are equally light in texture.