Edna Lewis’s Biscuits

I fell in love with true southern cooking while living in Augusta, Georgia. The southern cooks there would only use the soft wheat flour that is a product of the south -- White Lily and Martha White being the only two I know of. I have found this to make a huge difference in my biscuits and would never use the white or unbleached AP flours so readily available on our northern shelves.

The lead-in notes to the recipe have a helpful suggestion: "Be sure to use homemade baking powder, which you can make easily by sifting together 2 parts cream of tartar with 1 part baking soda. It leaves no chemical or metallic taste."

King Arthur makes a self-rising flour that is made from soft wheat. I have had great success using it for making biscuits (I add no baking soda or other leavinging).

I just read the below from a home baker who experimented with butter v. lard v. oil v. margarine (ick). He found no diff between lard and butter, and surprisingly not much between oil and butter. He also tested all sorts of other types and amounts of ingredients. I found it helpful although of the love of a biscuit is of course, subjective.....
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Science-of-Biscuits/

I use a sharp knife and cut the dough into squares, no re-rolling or reshaping necessary. No one minds the square biscuits either.

Joe, good lard (called leaf lard) is nothing like the hydrogenated (and bad for you) bricks sold in supermarkets. Leaf lard is the pristine white lard from around the kidneys and when rendered is soft, odorless and tasteless. It is simply incomparable in baked goods for tenderness and flakiness. Buy online, or get some from a farm or butcher and render it yourself,which is dead easy. You'll never lokk back.

There are only 2 degrees of separation from Miss Edna and me. My goddaughter, Lindsey, was taught how to make these from Scott Peacock who got the recipe from Miss Edna. They are the best. There is a charter school in Grant Park (Atlanta) where the students actually get these biscuits and other fab food every week.

Any non-aluminum baking powder, such as Rumford, will also not give your baked goods that bitter metallic taste.

According to what I've read, "3 cups sifted flour" means 'sift first, then measure' . The preparation instructions imply 'measure first, then sift'. This is a very big difference.

Most recipes for Royal Baking Powder include corn starch. Was this left out by mistake or on purpose.

As a substitute for buttermilk I use kefir since only lowfat buttermilk can be found in the Pacific northwest. Also, edna lewis' version calls to only stir the dough until combined rather than the additonal minutes in the nyt directions.

https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/southern-grains/ - I hope this revival of Southern grains takes root. Soft white wheat is the foundation of Southern biscuits.

These are lovely. I used butter because I don't like the taste of lard. Next time I'll add more milk because they are a tad dry.

Lard is definitely NOT cleaned up bacon fat. Leaf lard, which Miss Lewis preferred to use, is fat around the kidneys and is remarkably pure. Bacon fat is more of a grease. It is nor pure - bacon is made from pork bellies that have been processed via salty water brining and or apple wood smoking or similar processes.

I ended up using Rumford which is made by the same company.