“Can I have another roll?” A biscuit, I thought. Micah, age 9, looked at his mother with puppy-dog-begging eyes. Daughter passed him the biscuit basket; it was his fourth, maybe fifth, biscuit.
Watching my young Grand seated at our dining room table with his family, Husband, and me, I thought of Mom. I’d used her measuring cup and sifter and rolling pin and metal biscuit cutter to make these biscuits.
But my biscuits didn’t look or taste as good as Mom’s. Maybe because she practiced much more than I did – she baked biscuits almost every morning (except Sundays when she made pancakes.) Maybe because Mom used Martha White self-rising flour and I’d used Pillsbury all-purpose flour and added baking powder and salt. Maybe because she used home-churned buttermilk and I’d used store-bought whole milk. Maybe because her biscuits bring memories of sitting with her and Dad and older borther Roger around our 1950s yellow Formica kitchen table.
To begin making biscuits, Mom opened a drawer. A deep drawer filled with flour, a sifter*, a rolling pin* (with no handles), a metal 1-cup measuring cup,* and a tightly folded pastry cloth (now I wonder if it was ever washed) that had been a flour sack.
Using the metal cup, (the one in my AP flour) Mom dumped flour into a silver metal mixing bowl. Without measuring, she spooned white Crisco shortening, from a blue can, into the flour and cut it with a pastry blender. When the mixture looked like small white gravel, Mom made a well in the middle and poured buttermilk into the well. She used a wooden spoon to stir the flour mixture into the buttermilk, adding a little more buttermilk and flour until the dough was just the right consistency.
Mom dumped the dough onto the pastry cloth and kneaded enough flour into the dough to keep it from sticking to her hands. She gently patted the dough into a flattened ball. Using very little pressure, she rolled the dough to about ½” thick – placing the rolling pin in the middle and rolling to the edge. Mom lifted the dough edges to allow it to “rest” and not be stretched.
Using Mom’s biscuit cutter* is one of my earliest memories helping her in the kitchen. It was important to cut circles close to each other. I cut and Mom put them on an aluminum baking sheet that was dark brown because it was well seasoned. Mom gently formed the leftover pieces into a small ball and patted it with her hands. I cut more biscuits and there would be small curved triangles left. Those misshapen dough pieces were baked and were my favorite biscuits.
The chore of baking biscuits was finished when everything was put away. Mom carefully folded the pastry cloth and I shook it in the back yard. The sifter was shaken over the kitchen sink and the rolling pin was wiped clean, never washed, with a dry cloth. The mixing bowl, cutter, and wooden spoon were washed, rinsed and dried immediately.
Mom’s small biscuits – about two man-sized bites – were tender and flaky and browned on the top and bottom. Straight from the oven, each biscuit came apart perfectly so we could put a pat of butter on the bottom half and add the top. Homemade blackberry jam, apple jelly and grape jelly were served with hot biscuits.
Biscuit dough wasn’t just for biscuits. Mom used the dough to make butter sticks. Her, a family favorite dessert. To make the butter sticks, Mom rolled the dough into a rectangle and using a knife, she cut rectangles, about the size of a standard candy bar. She melted butter, lots of butter, in a big baking dish, then rolled the rectangle biscuits in the butter and sprinkled sugar, sometimes cinnamon sugar, on top. The butter sticks baked while we ate supper.
Next time, I’ll use Martha White self-rising flour and buttermilk and maybe my biscuits will look and taste like Mom’s. And sometime, I’ll make a few butter sticks. That’ll be a real treat.
*These are in my kitchen cabinets.
Susan R Ray June 2024
Filed under: Food | Tagged: biscuits, Mom's biscuits | 3 Comments »
Susan Writes 