Dear Friends
I tried for the first time the original touch of grace biscuit recipe yesterday. It came out well but I don’t think I put enough flour in it or underbaked it. It was a bit pasty.

I’ve been looking at a number of recipes for buttermilk on the web and wanted to compare them to the original Touch of Grace recipe as well as to Rose’s version.

What’s absolutely original to Rose’s is that she includes finely sieved 2 hard-boiled eggs yolks into the batter. I’ve never seen that before. Has anyone tried this? Or can anyone tell me what it is intended to do? It is a very uncommon addition to the recipe, which is circulating on the web, and I’d like to know her reasoning for the addition.

Many thanks
Shokat

ps. I got her recipe from the web, I’m waiting for my books to arrive by post. So perhaps there *aren’t* any egg yolks in her recipe.

Yes, I’ve done it both ways.  It is a very subtle difference to me—perhaps it is a bit richer and silkier with the eggs yolks—it is hard to describe, but certainly worth trying at least once.

PS Are you using bleached flour?  Unbleached flour can sometimes result is slightly pasty/doughy biscuits.

Dear Matthew

maybe you can help me figure out why the biscuit was pasty:

1. In the original recipe (forgive me, I don’t recall her last name precisely, but the author of the Touch of Grace Biscuit recipe whose first name is Shirley), there were instructions for substitutions in case one couldn’t get ahold of White Lily self-rising Flour. I followed her instructions: For her 1 and 1/2 cups of White Lily, I used Gold Medal self-rising all purpose, plus 1/2 cup of cake flour, plus 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

2. I sifted the flour into the measuring cup.

3. I baked the biscuits for 15 minutes, then another 5 minutes at 425degrees

4. I used the cream plus buttermilk combination: 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup cream

Voila: pasty biscuits. They were delicious. They were only slightly undercooked in the biscuit in the middle of the cake plan. But the crumb was respectably cakey, if very moist. but eating two (ok, I confess, three) made me slightly nauseous a couple hours later. I think they are too rich for my digestion! I am always greedy when baking and eat more than I should!

Shokat

FYI - Alex Gaurnichelli (sp?) uses hard boiled egg yolks in her ricotta cake recipe.

Patrincia - 11 November 2009 06:44 PM

FYI - Alex Gaurnichelli (sp?) uses hard boiled egg yolks in her ricotta cake recipe.

And Bruce Healy uses them in some of his French cookie recipes.

shokat - 11 November 2009 03:07 PM

Dear Matthew

maybe you can help me figure out why the biscuit was pasty:

1. In the original recipe (forgive me, I don’t recall her last name precisely, but the author of the Touch of Grace Biscuit recipe whose first name is Shirley)...

Shirley Corriher’s “Touch-of-Grace” Southern Biscuits as listed in her newest cookbook, “BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking,” (Scribner, $40, 532 pages).  A great cookbook along the lines of Rose’s approach to writing for baking, it tells you “how” and “why” as well as explains to you what you should learn from baking a particular recipe.  A good addition to your library.

BTW, you trivia fan will enjoy knowing that Mrs. Corriher is the “Crazy ol’ Cake Lady” on the episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” (Food Network) about cakes and the science of flours for cakes,  very entertAining, AND she’s SOUTHERN!

My favorite story about Mrs. Corriher from the Atlanta Journal:  http://www.ajc.com/services/content/eveningedge/stories/2008/11/23/corriher_cookwise.html 

Probably just under baked then if you used the right kind of flour.

I was going to say the same thing as Matthew—maybe a touch undercooked?

tdwyatt - 12 November 2009 06:18 PM

shokat - 11 November 2009 03:07 PM

Dear Matthew

maybe you can help me figure out why the biscuit was pasty:

1. In the original recipe (forgive me, I don’t recall her last name precisely, but the author of the Touch of Grace Biscuit recipe whose first name is Shirley)...

Shirley Corriher’s “Touch-of-Grace” Southern Biscuits as listed in her newest cookbook, “BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking,” (Scribner, $40, 532 pages).  A great cookbook along the lines of Rose’s approach to writing for baking, it tells you “how” and “why” as well as explains to you what you should learn from baking a particular recipe.  A good addition to your library.

BTW, you trivia fan will enjoy knowing that Mrs. Corriher is the “Crazy ol’ Cake Lady” on the episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” (Food Network) about cakes and the science of flours for cakes,  very entertAining, AND she’s SOUTHERN!

My favorite story about Mrs. Corriher from the Atlanta Journal:  http://www.ajc.com/services/content/eveningedge/stories/2008/11/23/corriher_cookwise.html 

Hi Tom - I was a Shirley O. Corriher fan long before Alton Brown’s show brought her into the spotlight.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article - thanks so much for posting it!

Thank you for the link Tom. It was so interesting.

I see the AJC article as a tribute to “exploding duck!”  :D