I have a love-hate relationship with biscuits. I love to eat them, but I hate to prepare them because I simply cannot get them right. My mother could whip up a batch of biscuits in no time, and they’d always turn out perfectly fluffy and golden brown. Me? They either don’t rise or are simply tasteless.
What I have discovered through my trials of biscuit making is that the secret to perfect biscuits is akin to getting onstage at Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.
Few home cooks seem to make biscuits very often anymore. And that’s too bad because once one gets the knack, they’re drop-dead easy, and serving forth a basket of delicate, piping hot biscuits never fails to impress company. They always think you’ve gone to a lot more trouble than you actually have. At least that’s what my late friend, fellow foodie and retired Hamilton County Extension agent Marilyn Geraldson once advised me.
(READ MORE: A Russian tea recipe from Marilyn Geraldson)
“Spend a few dollars on a bag of flour and a carton of buttermilk,” she said. (That’s about as close as I can get as I remember it.) “Take them into your kitchen and lock the door. Nobody needs to know what you’re doing in there. And then just practice until you’re happy with the results.”