Today's Food History, Buttermilk Biscuits & Tips

TODAY IN FOOD HISTORY

National Buttermilk Biscuit Day
National Dance like a Chicken Day

1686 Gabriel Fahrenheit was born.  Fahrenheit was a German physicist who invented the Fahrenheit temperature scale thermometer.  It was the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol, which also extended the temperature range of thermometers.

1853 Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk.

TODAY’S KITCHEN TIP

Chill cheese for easy grating and shredding. It'll make the job much easier. Chill hard cheeses in the freezer for 30 minutes and soft cheeses for 15 to 20 minutes, or until firm to the touch. If you want to crumble hard cheese, freeze it longer.

TODAY’S FOOD QUOTE

“Coleridge holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuse apple-dumplings. I am not certain but that he is right.” ~ Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

SOUTHERN BUTTERMILK BISCUIT RECIPE

Ingredients

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons shortening

1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.

Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform the scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.