It’s really Grover’s fault that I’ve been making biscuits, in search of perfection. I had brought triple-ginger gingerbread to work to share one day, which inspired spicy applesauce muffins... chocolate-chip peanut butter cookies…and brownies, the kind that don’t come out of a box and melt in your mouth. I saved Grover a brownie and told him I was sorry that his was the smallest one in the batch. Grover responded by asking what I was bringing in tomorrow (yes he is that annoying) and then he waxed poetic over biscuits, hot from the oven, smoking from steam and eaten with a chunk of butter, washed down with honey or homemade jam (told you he is annoying). I suddenly had that hot biscuits with butter taste in my mouth, too, which was why I researched biscuits, all kinds from baking power to sourdoughs and ended by fermenting my own starter and baking many batches of sourdough biscuits. Hot from the oven, smoking and steaming, they are delicious, flaky, tender, blessed with butter and anointed with honey.
Using google, I researched sourdough starters and yeast, leavening methods, history of the sourdough method, Lactobacillus culture, and somehow ended up reading about the hay maze in Bozeman, Montana. Suddenly I understood why breadmaking is intimidating to some. Sourdough is traditionally made using a portion of sourdough saved from a prior batch. (How do you get started if you need a prior batch?) The prior batch is called mother dough, or chef, or seed sour. What? Three words for the same thing? I liked the info at joejaworski.com/bread, everything seemed so straightforward. But again, I became overwhelmed with all the info. Ultimately I used unbleached flour, tap water (left overnight, uncovered, in a bowl), dunked briefly rinsed local grapes in it to get the local microorganisms and waited. It worked and I was pleased but mildly shocked. I used this starter many times. The biscuits have a distinct flavor which I now know is the result of the lactic acid produced by the lactobacilli. The biscuits are also delicious – so incredibly good that I suddenly have an urge to bake them again.
In August, of all months, I suddenly had a taste for biscuits again, but wanted to try a different flavor, which led to experiments with sweet potato recipes although I prefer yams. The first batch was good, but I wanted to make it better, and my daughter said I should make it sweeter and spicier. This is the recipe:
Sift together 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt. Cut ½ cup butter into the flour mixture, using a fork or a pastry cutter. Meanwhile, you have microwaved or baked two small garnet yams, peeled and mashed them in a separate bowl, added 2 tablespoons each of molasses and brown sugar, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ each of grated fresh nutmeg and mace or cloves. You should have about one and a half cups of gooey spicy yam glop. Add it to the dry mixture, then add up to 6 tablespoons of milk. Blend the mixtures together with as few strokes as possible, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out ½ inch thick. Use a round biscuit cutter, or make large squares. Oven 400 degrees, ungreased cookie sheet, bake about 10 minutes.
The little biscuit sandwiches in the picture are from the first batch, spread with horseradish stoneground mustard and sliced chicken basil sausages. Notice how brown the biscuits are because of the addition of the yams. I also made tomato sandwiches with these biscuits.
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