BISCUITS QUICK BREADS How to make them perfectly. HOW TO MAKE BISCUITS 1. Cut shortening into flour mixture. 2. Stir in milk. 3. Round up and knead. 4. Roll dough or pat out. 5. Cut close together. 6. Place close together or apart. Biscuits The daily bread of earlier days in the South. See color picture page 95. Typical Biscuits 2 cups GOLD MEDAL Flour 3 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. salt ¼ cup shortening ¾ cup milk Heat oven to 450º (hot). Measure flour by dip-level-pour method or by sifting (see p. 6). Mix dry ingredients well in bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture looks like "meal." Stir in almost all the milk. (If dough does not seem pliable, add enough to make a soft, puffy dough easy to roll out. (Too much milk makes dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.) Round up on lightly floured cloth-covered board. Knead lightly 20 to 25 times. Handle lightly. Roll dough or pat out (with floured hand) to about ½” thick (¼” for Southern biscuits). Cut close together with floured biscuit cutter. For speed, cut in squares with knife. Fit leftover bits together. (Do not re-knead.) Pat out dough, roll smooth and cut as desired. Place close together for biscuits with soft sides, an inch apart for biscuits with crusty sides, on ungreased baking sheet. Place in middle of oven. Bake 10 to 12 min. Serve piping hot. Makes 20 1½” biscuits (1” high). Drop Biscuits Make Biscuits (above)—except increase milk to 1 cup. Drop from spoon on greased pan or into greased muffin cups. Buttermilk Biscuits Make Biscuits (above)—except, in place of milk, use buttermilk. Use only 2 tsp. baking powder and add ¼ tsp. soda. Bacon Biscuits Make Biscuits (above)—except add ⅓ cup drained cooked bacon bits (about 4 strips) to flour and shortening mixture. Herb Biscuits Make Biscuits (above)—except add ¼ tsp. dry mustard, ½ tsp. crumbled dry sage and 1¼ tsp. caraway seeds to flour mixture. for shortcake biscuits, add 1 tbsp. sugar to dry ingredients and roll 1/2" thick. Bake soft dough & pat out & cut. Grammy Robinson wrote this 1978.