Post by MargaretAnne on Mar 10, 2010 9:32:39 GMT -5
I saw a website about making perfect biscuits. It interested me because I just starting baking them myself. I've tried baking them with and without buttermilk. I also tried a recipe using both buttermilk and butter.
I've been trying to find White Lily flour because I've been reading that it's supposed to be an excellent choice for biscuits. Supposedly, the company changed ownership fairly recently and there was some concern that the flour's integrity would suffer as a result.
This is White Lily's website:
www.whitelily.com
www.whitelily.com/Products/Category.aspx?groupid=93
Here's a video from the website showing how to make perfect biscuits:
www.whitelily.com/BakingTips/Tips_Video.aspx
The article about the company in the New York Times is in the link below. I've quoted an excerpt from it.
www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18flour.html
White Lily flour was also recommended at this website:
How to Make the Best Buttermilk Biscuits from Scratch — Pinch My Salt
I guess the self-rising flour is also recommended for biscuits. I'm not really sure but I was just going by the description of the products at the website. It did say all-purpose in the article from the New York Times. I guess they both work well.
I've been trying to find White Lily flour because I've been reading that it's supposed to be an excellent choice for biscuits. Supposedly, the company changed ownership fairly recently and there was some concern that the flour's integrity would suffer as a result.
This is White Lily's website:
www.whitelily.com
www.whitelily.com/Products/Category.aspx?groupid=93
Here's a video from the website showing how to make perfect biscuits:
www.whitelily.com/BakingTips/Tips_Video.aspx
The article about the company in the New York Times is in the link below. I've quoted an excerpt from it.
Biscuit Bakers’ Treasured Mill Moves North
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: June 18, 2008
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
FOR generations of Southern bakers, the secret to weightless biscuits has been one simple ingredient passed from grandmother to mother to child: White Lily all-purpose flour.
Biscuit dives and high-end Southern restaurants like Watershed in Atlanta and Blackberry Farm outside Knoxville use it. Blue-ribbon winners at state fair baking contests depend on it. On food lovers’ Web sites, transplanted Southerners share tips on where to find it, and some of them returning from trips back home have been known to attract attention when airport security officers detect a suspicious white dust on their luggage.
White Lily is distinctly Southern: it has been milled here in downtown Knoxville since 1883 and its white bags (extra tall because the flour weighs less per cup than other brands) are distributed almost solely in Southern supermarkets, although specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma and Dean & DeLuca have carried it at premium prices.
But at the end of June, the mill, with its shiny wood floors, turquoise and red grinders and jiggling armoire-size sifters, will shut its doors. The J. M. Smucker Company, which bought the brand a year ago, has already begun producing White Lily at two plants in the Midwest, causing ripples of anxiety that Southern biscuits will never be the same.
Maribeth Badertscher, a spokeswoman for the company, said the new White Lily was the result of thorough product testing and promised that customers “won’t know the difference.” But in a blind test for The New York Times, two bakers could immediately tell the old from the new.
No test was necessary for Fred W. Sauceman, author of a series of books called “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South, From Bright Hope to Frog Level,” who said White Lily should stay in Knoxville. “It’s kind of like the use of the word terroir when you’re talking about wine,” he said. “It means something to have been made in the exact same spot for 125 years, and it’s unconscionable not to respect that.”
He continued, “People felt so strongly about this flour that in the South it was reserved for Sunday dinner. It was called the Sunday flour.” A White Lily cookbook, now out of print, capitalized on that sentiment with the title “Sunday Best Baking: Over a Century of Secrets from the White Lily Kitchen.”
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: June 18, 2008
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
FOR generations of Southern bakers, the secret to weightless biscuits has been one simple ingredient passed from grandmother to mother to child: White Lily all-purpose flour.
Biscuit dives and high-end Southern restaurants like Watershed in Atlanta and Blackberry Farm outside Knoxville use it. Blue-ribbon winners at state fair baking contests depend on it. On food lovers’ Web sites, transplanted Southerners share tips on where to find it, and some of them returning from trips back home have been known to attract attention when airport security officers detect a suspicious white dust on their luggage.
White Lily is distinctly Southern: it has been milled here in downtown Knoxville since 1883 and its white bags (extra tall because the flour weighs less per cup than other brands) are distributed almost solely in Southern supermarkets, although specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma and Dean & DeLuca have carried it at premium prices.
But at the end of June, the mill, with its shiny wood floors, turquoise and red grinders and jiggling armoire-size sifters, will shut its doors. The J. M. Smucker Company, which bought the brand a year ago, has already begun producing White Lily at two plants in the Midwest, causing ripples of anxiety that Southern biscuits will never be the same.
Maribeth Badertscher, a spokeswoman for the company, said the new White Lily was the result of thorough product testing and promised that customers “won’t know the difference.” But in a blind test for The New York Times, two bakers could immediately tell the old from the new.
No test was necessary for Fred W. Sauceman, author of a series of books called “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South, From Bright Hope to Frog Level,” who said White Lily should stay in Knoxville. “It’s kind of like the use of the word terroir when you’re talking about wine,” he said. “It means something to have been made in the exact same spot for 125 years, and it’s unconscionable not to respect that.”
He continued, “People felt so strongly about this flour that in the South it was reserved for Sunday dinner. It was called the Sunday flour.” A White Lily cookbook, now out of print, capitalized on that sentiment with the title “Sunday Best Baking: Over a Century of Secrets from the White Lily Kitchen.”
www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18flour.html
White Lily flour was also recommended at this website:
Canned biscuits caused our ruination!
That was the subject of an e-mail I received after my last biscuit post. Who knew biscuits could stir such passion! Apparently, when canned biscuits made their debut, many women quit making them from scratch, even in the southern states.
Even in Tennessee where I’m from, when canned biscuits came out, women quit making homemade ones except for my grandmother who is 90 years old and still going strong. We live in Texas now and it amazes me how many people have never had a great homemade biscuit.
Carmen, the reader who sent the e-mail, went on to explain to me some of the real secrets of making great homemade biscuits and I am now forever in her debt!
The most important ingredient, of course, is the flour.
I’ve heard for a long time that White Lily brand flour is the best thing you can use for biscuits and Carmen’s passionate e-mail confirmed it. White Lily flour is made from 100% soft winter wheat and it has a much lower protein content than other brands of all-purpose flours. I won’t get too technical because for the purpose of this post, all you really need to know is this:
less protein = better for quick breads
more protein = better for yeast breads
Not all flours are created equal. Southern bleached all-purpose flours are made from the soft winter wheat that grows well in the warmer southern climate while northern all-purpose flours are made from the hard spring wheats that grow in the colder climate. Strains of soft winter wheat have less protein than the hard spring wheat and therefore southern all-purpose flours are better-suited for quick breads such as biscuits, cakes and muffins.
That was the subject of an e-mail I received after my last biscuit post. Who knew biscuits could stir such passion! Apparently, when canned biscuits made their debut, many women quit making them from scratch, even in the southern states.
Even in Tennessee where I’m from, when canned biscuits came out, women quit making homemade ones except for my grandmother who is 90 years old and still going strong. We live in Texas now and it amazes me how many people have never had a great homemade biscuit.
Carmen, the reader who sent the e-mail, went on to explain to me some of the real secrets of making great homemade biscuits and I am now forever in her debt!
The most important ingredient, of course, is the flour.
I’ve heard for a long time that White Lily brand flour is the best thing you can use for biscuits and Carmen’s passionate e-mail confirmed it. White Lily flour is made from 100% soft winter wheat and it has a much lower protein content than other brands of all-purpose flours. I won’t get too technical because for the purpose of this post, all you really need to know is this:
less protein = better for quick breads
more protein = better for yeast breads
Not all flours are created equal. Southern bleached all-purpose flours are made from the soft winter wheat that grows well in the warmer southern climate while northern all-purpose flours are made from the hard spring wheats that grow in the colder climate. Strains of soft winter wheat have less protein than the hard spring wheat and therefore southern all-purpose flours are better-suited for quick breads such as biscuits, cakes and muffins.
How to Make the Best Buttermilk Biscuits from Scratch — Pinch My Salt
I guess the self-rising flour is also recommended for biscuits. I'm not really sure but I was just going by the description of the products at the website. It did say all-purpose in the article from the New York Times. I guess they both work well.
