Roxana Jullapart’s White Cheddar Cornmeal Biscuits
Makes 8 to 10 biscuits
It’s important to use a biscuit cutter, which is easy to find in cooking supply stores. Biscuits with clean-cut sides will rise better. As an alternative, you can cut the dough into 2½-inch squares with a sharp chef’s knife, making sure to wipe the blade clean after each cut.
I top these biscuits with shredded white Cheddar and fresh thyme, so I like using white cornmeal. You could try a variation with yellow cornmeal, yellow Cheddar, and minced chives or serve the bare biscuits alongside butter and jam or with gravy.
As a refined and manufactured product, self-rising flour has been stripped of all fiber and nutritional value. In the process, it has been rendered flavor neutral—a perfect canvas for butter, lard, or buttermilk that contributes no flavor from the grain itself. But it turns out, it’s totally possible to bake a buttery whole-grain biscuit filled with flaky layers. Whole-grain biscuits may feel a degree denser than white flour counterparts, but they’re packed with flavor, texture, and nutrition. I especially enjoy making biscuits with yellow or white cornmeal, which makes them wholesome without compromising the biscuits’ quintessential lightness. I’ve always found traditional biscuits a bit doughy in the middle, and cornmeal remedies this, while creating a crunchy exterior. If this sounds enticing, use equal parts cornmeal and all-purpose flour, as given in the ingredients list. For a lighter biscuit, use a higher percentage of all-purpose flour. Use 2½ cups (350 grams) all-purpose flour and 1½ cups (240 grams ) fine cornmeal instead.
Biscuit experts are wholly convinced that self-rising flour is a prerequisite for tender, fluffy biscuits. And they’re right. Self-rising flours blend softer wheats with leavening agents to achieve incredible heights and billowy softness. Serious southern biscuit bakers have used White Lily Flour, a well-loved self-rising flour brand, to make biscuits for generations. But self-rising flour is the antithesis of everything a whole-grain enthusiast like me favors.
Image Credits
Photo by Kristin Teig
ingredients
- 2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (320 grams) fine white cornmeal
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks/225 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1½ cups (360 milliliters) buttermilk
- 4 ounces (115 grams) White Cheddar, grated
- 2 tablespoons thyme leaves
equipment
2½-inch plain biscuit cuttermethod
- Place an oven rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Sift the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a mixing bowl. Toss the cold butter cubes into the dry ingredients. Quickly cut the cold butter cubes into the dry ingredients by progressively pinching it with your fingertips, until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with hazelnut-size crumbs. Make a well in the center with your hands. Pour the buttermilk into the well in the dry ingredients. Toss gently with both hands (as if tossing a salad), until a shaggy dough forms. Transfer to a floured surface and shape by hand into a 10-by-5-inch rectangle about 1 inch thick. Fold the dough onto itself as if you were closing a book (this step helps create layers) and flatten by hand or using a rolling pin until the rectangle is 1 inch thick. Cut with a 2½-inch plain biscuit cutter. Gather scraps to cut a few additional biscuits. Discard anything left afterward; the dough is overworked and will yield tough biscuits. Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet. Top each biscuit with white Cheddar and a sprinkle of thyme.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the biscuits are golden. Rotating the sheet halfway through the baking process will ensure that the biscuits bake evenly. The biscuits are delicious 20 to 30 minutes after coming out of the oven, but they will reheat very well the next day. Store leftovers in an airtight container and reheat in a toaster oven at 350ºF for 6 to 8 minutes.
Divider
Recipe excerpted from Mother Grains, published by Norton, W. W. & Company.Links
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