My life has been filled with the pursuit of the perfect biscuit. I have not sought fame, nor fortune, just simply a good world class biscuit recipe. I want one that makes dough clouds so light that if you open the oven door, well you have to swat them back in with a spatula. I want a biscuit that it takes at least 3 good spoonsful of gravy just to keep in on the plate. In this time of “cliff diving”, world police action, etc, is my request too much to ask?
I thought I had the recipe after watching the cooking channel yesterday. A place in Carolina , I think Chapel Hill, known as the Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen is supposed to have the best biscuits in the country. I hit the internet and found what was supposedly their recipe. Let me clue you, the owners of the SBK are probably laughing their flour dusted aprons off this morning. I succeeded in baking some of the finest clay pigeons that a skeet shooter would ever want. Talk about dense. Bertie, if you happen to need a paper weight and are short of clay, well I could send up a dozen of these little hockey pucks and you could paint a hunting scene on them and sell them as fast as you could haul them out of the kitchen. Needless to say, I have destroyed the recipe and will temporarily return to pre-prepared frozen biscuits.
James Earl’s grandfather could make a damned fine sour dough biscuit. They were about the size of a small hamburger bun and every bit as light. Never asked, but wonder if that recipe is around?
I have my blackeyed peas cooked and they are awaiting the preparation of a batch of cornbread. Now that is something that I can make. Some fried porkchops, a nice little healthy salad and dinner will be a keeper.
I have made a resolution that 2013 will see me slimming down like a super model. D bought me a new scale that hooks up to my telephone and to her Ipad. Every time I eat a piece of chocolate pie, her Ipad will report to my scale that I have gone off course and my phone will ring and call me a fat ass. The marvels of modern technology are unbelievable. I will try to lose down to a reasonable size in hopes that the cost of renting that tuxedo for the wedding will be keyed to the size that I order. I can only surmise that a XL would be cheaper than a XXXL. I want that gray tuxedo to make me look like a porpoise knifing thru the waves as opposed to a , well you get the picture.
I hope that 2013 is a good year for us all and feel that it will be.
GHC
ghomercowan 
Just love it, Gary. Happy New Year to you and your family, too!
Chuy…….Believe me in that I fully understand your quest for the perfect bicuit…..I’ve been chasing that dream for several years……I finally decided that by going
down to my local HEB and purchasing their brand of Buttermilk Biscuits,that I was as close as I’d probably ever get. Another great thing about them other than taste and texture is the fact that they package ’em in little cans of 5 as well as the 10 pkg. can……Happy New Year and good luck on the getting down to your
fightin’ size for the Tux JB
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Jim if you are going to buy biscuits – try the frozen ones. You can take out as many as you want and they are almost like homemade!
Gary – this is my Mom’s recipe. Mine were never as good and I complained about it. She asked if I had cut in the Crisco. I said ‘No, that was not in the recipe’. If you knew my Mom you would understand her reply ‘Oh, I always cut in some Crisco.’ Great dumpling recipe, too. When my youngest was in high school he watched me make these and when he commented that it didn’t look too hard – I let him do it the next time. They were as good as mine!
BUTTERMILK BISCUITS
4 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons shortening (important for light biscuits)
2 cups buttermilk
Sift flour and mix with dry ingredients, cut in shortening, add buttermilk and mix. Pat out on floured board or waxed paper and cut with cutter. (A dab of shortening on top of each biscuit takes away floured look.) Bake about 15 minutes at 450.
For chicken dumplings: Use only 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder. Pat out rather thin, cut in strips, tear in pieces and drop into boiling chicken broth (7-8 cups). Cover, turn heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Do not take lid off during cooking time!!! (My trick is that after putting all dough into pan, I cover it and wash my hands. Then I turn it down).
P.S. Eric (youngest son) took the lid off my dumplings and Brian (oldest son) yelled at him “Don’t you know anything – you don’t take the lid off!”