Surfas Breadmaking Class: Bread #3: Cream Biscuits

The second quick bread we made during the two-day bread workshop at Surfas Culinary District in Culver City (the first was Irish Soda Bread) was Cream Biscuits, perfect vessels to deliver gravy or honey into your salivating mouth. I don’t eat biscuits much at home but I do love me some of those crumbly goodness drizzled in honey, with an occasional (yes, occasional!) fried chicken from KFC.

The best part of it all is that these biscuits come together in a cinch, possibly quicker than trying to figure out how to safely unwrap Pillsbury’s air pressured can without exploding in your face.

For the recipe, we used White Lily brand flour. According to the recipe, “The soft bleached gluten in the flour results in light, tender baked products.” If White Lily flour is unavailable, you can substitute it by simply adding 1-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and ½ teaspoon of salt to each cup of White Lily flour.

To start, make a well in the center of the flour ina bowl and slowly pour in the heavy cream. Mix by pulling the flour into the liquid.

Stir to form a sticky dough. The texture you’re looking for here is “shaggy” and “wettish.” These adjectives make me chuckle.

Turn the “shaggy” and “wettish” (hee hee) dough onto a work surface.

Fold the dough into half …

… and roll it into a 1/3 to 1/2-inch thick round.

Cut the biscuit using your favorite cookie cutter. Make sure to flour the cutter and work swiftly, as the dough is super soft and crumbly.

Brush each biscuit with cream.

Finally, place the biscuits onto a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake in a 450 degree F oven for 10-14 minutes or until golden brown.

So, a little lesson learned here:

My group partner Heather and I both fell in love with the square cutter with ridges and made our biscuits using it. Big mistake. The biscuits came out thick and doughy, and the finished product wasn’t as cute as we’d envisioned.

We agreed that our biscuits would have came out crispier and more flavorful using the regular round kind, like the one you see here being used by Chef John.

Despite our little hiccup, the biscuits were still very yummy. We smeared the fresh butter and strawberry preserves and devoured them while they were piping hot! Heavenly!