Forum

I love a good biscuit in the morning with a cup of coffee.  I have wonderful friends that make beautiful jelly and jam, so a nice warm biscuit is a great way to enjoy my jam.  I was looking for a new and good buttermilk biscuit and found the buttermilk/cheddar chesse biscuit in Barefoot Contessa, Back to Basics.  what a great find.  If you have not tried these, please do.  I have 270+ cookbooks and EYB has helped me make better use of my cookbooks.  Try the biscuits, they are beautiful, easy to make and the taste is out of this world.   pg. 228

If anyone wants to try these biscuits after sisterspat's glowing recommendation - there is a link to the recipe online from the recipe page or here's the link to Food Network.

This recipe looks lovely - but was not what I was expecting! I thought I would see something to dunk in the coffee which this clearly is not :-)  So obviously biscuits in the US are not the same as biscuits in the UK. Anyone know, are they similar to what I would call a scone? And now you've got me thinking, what is the US term for what I would call a biscuit (eg Oreos)? I learn something new on this site every day!

I would say they are more like a dinner roll, no yeast.  They are served with butter, honey or jam.  I think they are a very southern thing.  My father was from Oklahoma, my mother was from Canada, (what a combo!)  It took several years for my mother to master the biscuit.  He liked them with sausage gravy for breakfast and also with jam and bacon and eggs.  I often will put an egg on mine and make a little sandwich.  Hope you try them with some good jam.  The trick is not to handle or over mix the dough, giving you a nice high rise and fluffy biscuit.  There is a great cookbook called Southern Biscuits by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart.

Susan_F -- The US term for UK biscuits would be cookies (like the Oreos you mentioned). If you are searching your bookshelf or the EYB library, those are all indexed as "Cookies, biscuits, & crackers." The type of biscuit sisterspat is talking about gets categorized on EYB as "Bread & rolls, savory" with an ethinicity of "North American" to differentiate them from UK biscuits.

Glad you're enjoying the site!

U.S. biscuits are more like a scone than anything else -- they're usually a shortbread.  There is a version old-timers in my area of the south (Appalachia) call 'yeast biscuits',  which have the texture of dinner rolls except cut into rounds, but 99% of the biscuits made from scratch in the US home kitchens are non-yeasted, round, and sconelike.

That's a distinct minority of the biscuits actually eaten in the U.S., though. A depressingly large proportion of the "home-baked" biscuits in this country are baked from the prepared dough sold in a tube in the freezer section of the supermarket.  Probably 99% of biscuits eaten outside the home are part of a Kentucky Fried Chicken meal or a fast-food chain breakfast. 

Before the Pillsbury tube and the growth of fast food chains, i.e., before the mid-1950s, biscuits were much more of a southern food than a national one.

For readers outside the U.S., American biscuits can be scone-like, depending on the recipe.  Some are high rise and puffy/fluffy, others are less lofty and have a more dense, drier and crumblier texture, similar to a scone.  Whatever the recipe, American biscuits are usually round and perhaps 2 inches in diameter, so they are smaller than the average scone.  They can be eaten any time of day, but are most popular at breakfast, seved hot, split and filled with butter and/or jam.  As others have mentioned, a split biscuit smothered with a rich creamy gravy flecked with bits of breakfast sausage is a very popular quick breakfast dish in the South and parts of the Midwest.  (It's not considered to be a very high-class dish, however, so for some people it's a bit of a secret vice.)  American biscuits are savory, not sweetened. Some popular fluffy versions are made with buttermilk.  A famous, but extremely labor-intensive traditional variety is called beaten biscuits, because the dough is literally pounded with a hammer for at least half an hour to achieve the desired texture! Some very light and luxurious biscuits are called spoon biscuits or spoon bread. In another popular variation, cheddar cheese and perhaps some herbs are added to the dough.  The ubiquitous American chain restaurant called Red Lobster is famous for theirs, and many people are addicted to them!  That recipe can also be baked in a loaf pan as a quick bread and served sliced.  

In addition to being eaten on their own or with sausage gravy, biscuits can serve as a nice alternative topping to casseroles like shepherd's or cottage pie, or to top a pot pie.  The biscuits are just laid on top of the filling and baked until they are done and golden brown on top.  You can be as creative as you wish with the dough!  If you are curious by now, you can find endless recipes here on EYB in American cookbooks and also online at U.S. food sites.  If you go online there will be lots of pictures of biscuits, so you know what they look like!

One famous variation, especially in the South, is to bake a single large round biscuit of the scone-like crumbly type in an 8 or 9-inch cake or pie dish.  After it's cool, the biscuit is split horizontally in two, and filled with cut strawberries and whipped cream, which can also cover the top layer of the biscuit, as well.  This is what Americans traditionally call Strawberry Shortcake.  It is sometimes seen made with layers of sponge cake rather than biscuit, but purists know that it's totally inauthentic!  The real thing is made with biscuit layers.

If it's available where you live, the American ready-made dry biscuit mix called Bisquick is a useful shortcut.  Just follow the recipes on the box.  My mother has used it forever, although she has switched loyalties to the store brand sold at Aldi's in the U.S., which she swears is even better than the original mix!  Outside the U.S. you may be able to find it at shops that cater to homesick American expats, or you can order it on Amazon.  You can also make your own -- just look for homemade biscuit mix recipes online.  The mix is basically flour into which oil or shortening has been cut in, plus some leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda.  

How interesting! I have never thought of (US) biscuits as a breakfast food, but rather a dinner accompaniment, best with hearty soups and stews, or pretty much any dinner you might serve bread as a side. I think of them as small savory quick breads (that you can make at the last minute when you realize you forgot to start the bread when you should have).

Baking powder biscuits were the very first thing taught in my home ec cooking class in middle school. I had been cooking a bit at home for a couple years by then so let the other girls have at it. There was a bossy girl in my cluster that thought she knew everything (even though she had never, ever cooked before). She used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon and mixed up the baking soda and the baking powder and we ended up with hockey pucks. :)

I have had biscuits for breakfast occasionally at restaurants when traveling, but toast or English muffins are more common for breakfast breads in my experience. Now, keep in mind my view may be skewed because I'm a California girl, and we do some things a little differently than the rest of the country. :)