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Biscuit Bliss

Biscuit BlissBiscuits are such a simple food. Small, quick-rising, buttery and tender, they don’t take the time or energy that a yeast bread does – or do they? Although biscuits seem simple, anyone who has tried their hand at making them will tell you that there is more to a little biscuit than meets the eye. James Villas’ Biscuit Bliss is all about crafting the perfect biscuit, and enhancing the already perfect plain biscuit into many equally tasty variations.

The cookbook covers the basic biscuit types – raised biscuits (plain/cut) and drop biscuits – and many sweet (e.g. scones) and savory variations of those basic recipes. But even before getting into the recipes, there is an introduction about what a biscuit is. To make a biscuit, you need three ingredients: flour, leavenings and fats. With such a simple base, it’s important to use good quality ingredients. Villas says that you can use all purpose flour, but for the best results be recommends using a soft wheat flour (more often sold in the South) that has a lower protein content, such as White Lily. A mixture of half cake flour and half all purpose is a pretty good substitute.

The recipes stick with the same or similar formulas throughout, so this book really is a good reference for biscuit making, as you’ll get more and more confident – and hopefully have ever-better results – as you cook with it. Hopefully, you’ll be baking biscuits like a skilled Southern grandmother by the time you finish the book. It has some lovely photos, but biscuits aren’t really a type of food that needs a lot of illustration, unlike some other baked goods, so the book doesn’t loose anything by not illustrating every recipe. There is also a chapter on cooking with biscuits, making dishes like Chicken Pot Pie and Fruit Cobblers to introduce a few extra ideas about how versatile biscuit dough can be.

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8 Comments
  • snookydoodle
    March 16, 2009

    interesting book 🙂

  • Wonderful timing! I am so battling chicken overload (I’m a culinary school student and doing nothing but chickens this week) that a nice starch looks just great.

    I’ll have to pop by the bookstore and see if I can grab a copy.

    Thanks for the heads up!

    Cheers.

  • Kerstin
    March 16, 2009

    Thanks for sharing – I’ve never been satisified with my biscuits, so I’ll have to check out the tips in this book!

  • Felicity Bramble
    March 18, 2009

    I am not that good at making biscuits either. Just like kerstin i am never happy with my biscuits. Also thanks for the post

  • Lisa
    March 20, 2009

    I dream of making the perfect biscuit! Sounds like this would a great book for me to check out.

  • India
    March 23, 2009

    I’ve ordered this book and I am really looking forward to it. Being a Scot, biscuits (what I would call a savoury scone) are a bit of a novelty for me, so I am looking forward to making some. DOn’t know if I’ll ever be able to make gravy to go with them, mind you ;0)

  • rolex replica
    March 25, 2010

    thank you

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