Penultimate Bisky Biscuits

Mmmm….I love a good biscuit.  I will judge a restaurant by the quality of their biscuits.  I am what you would call a biscuit snob, and very few places meet up to my high standards.  While I am loathe to admit it, one of my favorite non-homemade biscuits comes from Popeye’s.  So buttery, flaky, melty in your mouth…<insert Homer Simpson gurlging noise here>.

Now when it comes to homemade biscuits, I turn to my mom’s famous biscuits (otherwise known as “Bisky Biscuits”).  I’ve never had a biscuit anywhere else that resembles my mom’s biscuits.  I’m not sure why, because it is essentially a standard Bisquick recipe with a few tweaks.  I have tried many recipes “from scratch,” and they just don’t compete with the Bisquick version.  It may just be that I’m in love with what I used to eat as a kid, but they are my gold standard.

HOWEVER (brace yourself), we have discovered a recipe that comes pretty close to the Bisquick version in excellence and has recently become hard to resist.  I present…Cat-head biscuits.  What on earth is a Cat-head biscuit?  Why, it’s a classic Southern biscuit that is the size of a cat’s head (well duhh).  Apparently, in some part of the country, they actually call them that… who knew!
They are easy to put together, bake quickly, and they come out perfectly tender and flaky.  And they are also enormous.

This recipe comes from Cook’s Country (a subsidiary of America’s Test Kitchen).  The ingredients are pretty standard:  all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, butter, shortening, and buttermilk.  Part of the secret to this recipe is using a mixture of regular flour and cake flour to get that perfect biscuit texture.


Another unique factor is using both butter and shortening.  Butter has all the flavor, but shortening helps with texture. 


The recipe says to use butter that is “slightly softened.”  I find this odd because most biscuit recipes tell you to use really cold butter.  You want it slightly soft because you are supposed to rub it into the flour with your hands.  This is also an odd step, but I do as I’m told!  (errrr, sometimes)

 

Next you add the buttermilk and stir until just combined.  You don’t want to overmix it.  Part of the charm of this recipe is that it is really quick to put together, and you don’t have to pull out the rolling pin.  You just divide the dough into six giant chunks and arrange them in a round cake pan (the 6th biscuit goes right in the middle).



The biscuits grow up and into each other as they bake, so you have to cut them apart when they’re done.  Man, don’t those look good?!  So soft and buttery and a little tangy from the buttermilk.
So is it true?  Are they the size of a cat’s head?



You bet they are!!