The best, simplest biscuits ever
What’s better on a cold, grey November day than a bowl of hot soup or stew? I’ll tell you what: a bowl of soup or stew with steaming hot, fresh, homemade biscuits.
Who’s got the time? You do, with this ridiculously easy recipe, so easy in fact, that once you’ve done it once, and bought a bag of self-rising flour to have on hand, you won’t even need a recipe the next time you want to whip up a batch in minutes.
Just stir together equal amounts of self-rising flour and Greek yogurt and pop them in a 400-degree oven. They’ll be ready by the time you heat the soup.
You can make the biscuits with regular flour too — see the recipe below for making your own selfrising flour mixture, though some experts say the soft flour used in self-rising mixtures lends itself particularly well to biscuits.
Mix-ins make these even more fun and creative. I tried them with old Cheddar and fresh chives and they were wonderful with a bit of butter melting on their savoury goodness. Next time, I’m going to try blue cheese and crumbled cooked bacon.
This recipe is from the website thekitchn.com, but there are lots of variations flying around the Internet, including sweet ones with a bit of sugar and heavy cream instead of yogurt, ones with added salt, and ones that you roll out and cut with a biscuit cutter.
For cream ones, it’s still an impossible-to-forget 1:1 ratio, but you use equal weights of flour and cream, rather than measuring by volume.
The website Food52 quotes recipe creator P.J. Hamel of Vermont’s King Arthur flour as saying “I love that I can go somewhere and think, ‘Hmmm, 14 biscuits would be about right’ — OK, 7 ounces flour, 7 ounces heavy cream.”
2-INGREDIENT DROP BISCUITS
Makes: 9 plain biscuits (more if you have add-ins) Preparation time: less than 30 minutes 1 ½ cups (375 mL) self-rising flour 1 ½ cups (375 mL) plain wholemilk Greek yogurt Optional add-ins (pick one or two): ¼ cup (60 mL) finely chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, oregano, basil, cilantro, scallions or chives OR 2 tbsp (30 mL) finely chopped fresh rosemary or thyme ½ cup (125 mL) shredded Cheddar, Swiss or Parmesan cheese ½ cup (125 mL) crumbled feta or blue cheese ½ cup (125 mL) small-dice ham or crumbled, cooked bacon ½ cup (125 mL) finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes or olives 1. Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 F (205 C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. Mix the dough: Place the flour, yogurt and any add-ins in a large bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a moist, shaggy dough forms and no dry bits of flour remain.
3. Using a ¼-cup (60-mL) measuring cup, drop the dough onto the baking sheet, spacing the biscuits at least 1 ½ inches (4-cm) apart.
4. Bake the biscuits until golden brown in spots on top, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving. Self-rising flour substitute: 1 ½ cups (375 mL) all-purpose flour ( but you’ll remove 2 ½ tsp/12.5 mL) 2 ¼ tsp (11 mL) baking powder ¼ tsp (1 mL) fine salt 1. Measure the 1 ½ cups (375 mL) flour into a bowl; remove 2 ½ tsp (12.5 mL) of the flour and return it to flour container.
2. Whisk in the baking powder and salt.