7 Rules to Making Perfect Biscuits From Scratch Every Time - Plus 1 Great Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe

Making biscuits is not an exact science, but it does require some basic tips and techniques to get the job done right. Take any any biscuit recipe you have (see below), apply these 7 simple rules to that recipe, and you will be making perfect homemade scratch biscuits every time.

1) Use a good low-gluten, soft-wheat flour.

2) Sift the flour one time by itself, then sift it again with the other dry ingredients in the recipe. This will create the perfect lightness for your biscuits.

3) The flakiest, best-textured biscuits are made when using lard as the fat in the biscuit recipe. If you do not feel good about using all lard for your biscuits, try using half lard and half vegetable shortening. But never use any vegetable oils in any biscuit recipe.

4) Chill the bowl and the fat used, and work quickly to keep the fat from melting. Every grain of flour needs to be covered in fat in order to prevent the flour's gluten from being activated by the water. If you activate the gluten, you will end up with a hard, heavy biscuit.

5) Buy a good biscuit cutter that makes a nice, sharp cut. It should also allow air to escape (an open top), which gives biscuits the chance to rise properly.

6) Pat the biscuit dough out only one time. Re-rolling dough will cause the gluten in the biscuit recipe to toughen the dough, making very heavy and dense biscuits.

7) To bake evenly, turn the baking sheet around one time during the baking. If baking more than one cookie sheet full of biscuits at a time, switch the positions of the pans once during cooking.

Before baking powder was ever invented, cooks always used buttermilk in biscuits. This would help them rise. Although it still works today, people go more for the flavor buttermilk provides than for its ability to rise the biscuit dough.

Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups good soft-wheat flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons lard, well chilled
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
1 cup chilled buttermilk

Directions:

Position the oven rack in the middle, and preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a baking sheet.

Sift the flour, then sift together all dry ingredients in a large bowl. With a large fork or pastry blender, blend in the lard and vegetable shortening until a course meal is formed.

Pour in the buttermilk, and stir together ingredients until a sticky dough is formed.

Flour your hands and a pastry board or counter top. Turn out the dough and knead it gently, just 4 to 6 times. Pat out the dough until it is about 1/2 inch thick.

Cut the dough with a 2 to 3-inch round biscuit cutter, or a round cookie cutter.

Move the biscuits to the baking sheet, arranging them so they just barely tough each other. Bake the biscuits for about 10 minutes, or until raised and golden brown in color (Remember to turn the baking sheet at the halfway point).

Serve the biscuits hot and with butter.

Ogden, Iowa - Home Style Sausage Biscuits & Gravy

Hamilton coach here and I must tell you that it is a place in Ogden, Iowa, where breakfast is never a breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy country style is better that you have the feeling that you just ate.

The small restaurant makes our small town of Ogden, Iowa, famous for its style home cooked evening meals. This great little restaurant is "The Country Chit Chat". Farmers in all the stoves in their morning coffee and orders of someone when> Biscuits and Gravy is seeing something special.

The waitress takes the plate and the aroma of hickory flavor with the smell of sausage gravy, you're crazy. expect to see too, the sauce is on the edge of the plate. Now there are only two reasons why the owner can drive the sauce would be beyond the edges of the plate.

One, two, the plates are too small, or there is an enormous amount of accumulated and Southern Style BiscuitsSausage Gravy. I must admit, after trying to eat a bowl of this amazing breakfast itself is simply too much food on your plate to eat that for a man. ... So the answer is that landowners Chit Chat prefer to leave full and satisfied.

They say the secret of biscuits and gravy is the perfect tasting type of sausage and spices used in Hickory. I could never get the owner to me to find out the exact recipe. He said it was hislittle secret. I promise to keep bugging them for it.

The restaurants I review and the "Country Chit Chat Restaurant in Ogden, Iowa controlled, I can tell you that specialize in country cooking. They should be very proud of them when preparing large portions of the restaurants serve it with a smile.

If roast beef sandwiches ... as the country Chit Chat Restaurant certainly a place. The lunch specials are good ... Special. The owneris proud to serve high quality food products at the lowest price in town. I quote the owner: "Our burger baskets are larger and less expensive than McDonalds!"

5 Fun Kids Cooking Activities

Do your children like to spend their time making awesome mud pies or are they constantly stirring up some of their best grass soup? Then maybe it's time to let them loose in the kitchen with these fun kids cooking activities.

1. Allow your kids to create a new recipe. Pick out 5-7 ingredients that you think might go together and can be baked in a pie pan. For example, eggs, cheese, barbecue sauce, salt, flour, garlic powder, and corn chips can go together. The kids can also try a combination of cinnamon, eggs, flour tortillas, caramel sauce, and bananas. You may need to help them figure out "reasonable" amounts of each ingredient. There's no right answer; just have fun with it.

2. Start a Kids' Recipe Book. Everyone has recipes they love, including the kids. Have your child pick out 10 of his or her very favorite recipes. Either you or they can type the recipes out on the computer in a cool font with borders and some clipart. Print them out and "laminate" them with clear contact paper. They can then put the recipes in their very own cooking notebook.

3. Give your child an easy kid-friendly recipe to prepare on their own. Kids love to spread their wings and do things "all by myself." Give them the opportunity by handing them a super easy recipe and explaining how to do it. Depending on their age and skill, talk about kitchen safety and that you will be handling the oven/stove part of the task.

4. Have the kids take pictures of each other while cooking. They can make a small scrapbook filled with photos of their proud cooking moments. They will really enjoy this now, but also after they've grown up. Looking at the scrapbook and their kids' recipe book may remind them of good family times.

5. Decorate the cupcake challenge. Most kids have no problem creatively decorating a cupcake when given the proper toppings. Add a twist to the activity by getting out any possible toppings you can think of and asking them to decorate the cupcake to look like a cat or a flower. They'll come up with some decorative toppings you didn't think of.

All these kids cooking activities give you the chance to teach your kids the ins and outs of cooking. Your children also get the chance to learn many things in an atmosphere of fun. Give your child every opportunity to be creative in the kitchen and your child will thank you one day.