A HARTE APPETITE: BISCUITS BRIDGE BETWEEN PASTRY, CAKE

Good old-fashioned biscuits with jam are always popular.

What could be better than having your cake and eating it, too? How about having your cake and eating pie crust, too! That, according to Rose Levy Beranbaum, is exactly what you have when you eat a biscuit, and she should know, for Beranbaum is the author of both the Cake Bible and the Pie and Pastry Bible.

As Beranbaum explains, biscuits are actually the bridge between pastry and cake. While they are prepared like flaky pie dough, they contain the same basic ingredients as cake. No wonder they are so good.

At our house, because of culinary overzealousness, we recently rediscovered the appeal of homemade biscuits. Faced with the need to use up the remains of a 22-pound ham prepared for 10 people at Easter, we whipped up some traditional Southern ham biscuits, little ham sandwiches made with biscuits instead of bread. The ham disappeared in no time, and in the process we were reminded how delectable a biscuit can be.

As Marcelle Bienvenu, writing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, points out, biscuits have been popular in this country since just before the Civil War when the introduction of commercial baking powder made it easy to prepare them and other so-called "quick" breads (quick because they do not require the long rising times of yeast breads). And, as she also notes, nothing is more Southern.

That's not to say that folks living above the Mason-Dixon line don't know how to make them, but there really is a difference between a Northern biscuit and a Southern one. As food scientists at Oregon State University indicate, biscuits vary with cultural background and geographical location. They suggest that the ideal southern biscuit has a rough pale golden crust with a uniform fine crumb; whereas, the standard northern biscuit has a golden brown, smooth, tender and crisp crust without brown specks.

Furthermore, most southern cooks will tell you that the secret to perfect southern biscuits is in the flour, and they warn that "Yankee" flour just won't do. Flour milled in the North, which includes most national brands, is made from hard wheat, which is high in protein. Beranbaum, for example, reports that Pillsbury and Gold Medal all-purpose flours typically contain 11 percent protein; bread flour, such as King Arthur's, is even higher at 14 percent. Southern flour, sometimes called biscuit flour, such as Martha White or White Lily, on the other hand, is made from soft wheat, which contains less protein, around 9 percent, according to Beranbaum.

The more protein, the more strands of gluten, the elastic substance formed when the protein in flour combines with liquid. Gluten is desirable in yeast breads where it traps the carbon dioxide released through fermentation and gives the bread structure. But it tends to make biscuits tough. Originally some biscuits were meant to be hard. In fact, as Sharon Tyler Herbst notes in the Food Lover's Companion, the word biscuit comes from the French biscuit, which means "twice cooked," which is what was done to sea biscuits to keep them crisp. But these days we like our biscuits tender and flaky. Indeed, as Beth Hensperger observes in her book on the subject, it is this flakiness, the result of a layering effect not unlike that in puff pastry, that makes biscuits (and scones, for that matter, which are essentially biscuits in a different shape) unique among quick breads.

Geographic differences aside, there are several types of biscuits. There are rolled biscuits, cut from dough which have been kneaded and rolled out. These are typically cut into rounds, but they can also be cut into squares, rectangles or sticks, an approach which eliminates scraps.

There are drop biscuits that, as their name indicates, are made by simply dropping batter directly onto a baking sheet. Drop biscuit dough is usually made with more liquid than rolled dough. You can bake drop biscuits in muffin tins for the sake of uniformity if you like.

There are cream biscuits that rely on heavy cream rather than butter or shortening to provide the fat. They are perhaps the easiest of all biscuits to prepare because the fat does not have to be cut into the dry ingredients separately.

There are buttermilk biscuits, such as those for which Mother's restaurant in New Orleans is famous. They are a classic southern specialty. According to Mother's chef, Jerry Amato, in a recent interview in Restaurants and Institutions magazine, buttermilk makes a dough that requires less handling resulting in a more tender biscuit.

There are combination biscuits, such as angel biscuits or cloud biscuits, which contain yeast as well as baking powder or some other leavener. Technically these are not really biscuits at all but something closer to a yeast roll.

There are fried biscuits that are cooked in hot oil, and there are beaten biscuits that, true to their name, are beaten vigorously before being baked. Beaten biscuits that may actually predate Colonial times, tend to be dry and can be served like cocktail crackers. Originally cooks pounded the dough with a hammer, mallet or the side of an ax until the invention of the biscuit brake, a device that used hand-cranked rollers to do the job. Today a food processor can reduce the beating time from the customary 15 or 30 minutes to only two or three.

Regardless of type and despite the mystique often surrounding them, biscuit recipes, as the Joy of Cooking notes, tend to be forgiving. As long as you are careful to avoid overworking the dough, you'll probably get good results. And though refrigerated biscuits produce quite satisfactory results (no less an authority than the late James Beard even wondered if they rendered homemade ones obsolete), making your own is surely more rewarding. Moreover, when you mix the ingredients yourself, you can add a variety of flavorings such as cheese, herbs, hot peppers, nutmeats, wild rice, fruits and vegetables, and even cocoa powder. The following recipes can get you started while demonstrating why, in the words of Beth Hensperger, "In some households, biscuits are still the bread."

Flying Biscuits

These biscuits, along with lots of other great food, have made their namesake restaurant, The Flying Biscuit Caf82, which bakes nearly 5,000 of them each week, one of the most popular places in all of Atlanta. They are the creation of Chef April Moon, whose aunt and uncle, Larry and Alice Breeze, live right here in Cape Girardeau.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour (such as White Lily)

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons butter at room temperature, cut into bits

2/3 cup heavy cream

2/3 cup half and half

2 tablespoons half and half for brushing on top of biscuits

1 tablespoon sugar for sprinkling on top of biscuits

Directions:

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and work in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Make well in center of flour, pour in cream and half-and-half, and mix just until dough begins to come together into a ball. Knead dough two or three times on lightly floured surface and roll to 1-inch thickness. Cut dough with biscuit cutter. Place 1/4-inch apart on sheet pan lined with parchment paper, brush with half and half and sprinkle with sugar, and bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes until lightly browned. Makes 8-12.

Blue Cheese Biscuits

These are "worse than popcorn, cookies or potato chips -- you can't keep out of them," declares Barbara Rose Rust who shares her variation on a recipe which, she says, is so old she cannot remember where she got it. She says the biscuits are also great cold in case there are leftovers, which at her house there usually aren't.

Ingredients:

4 packages refrigerated biscuits

2 sticks butter

4 ounces crumbled blue cheese

Directions:

Cut biscuits into quarters and arrange in one layer in 10-x-15 oblong baking pan. Melt together butter and cheese and pour over biscuit pieces being sure to coat all. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until brown. (Watch carefully at end as they brown quickly.) Serves 4.

Ham and Black Pepper Biscuits

These sensational biscuits from Marcelle Bienvenu of the New Orleans Times-Picayune are a good example of a drop biscuit. I recommend a heavy hand with the pepper mill.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons chilled shortening

2 tablespoons chilled butter

2 ounces finely chopped boiled ham

1 1/2 cups milk

Directions:

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and pepper and cut in butter and shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in ham. Add milk and stir until just mixed. Drop dough by large spoonfuls (about 1/4 cup) onto greased baking sheet about 1 inch apart and bake at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned. Makes 12.

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

with Cornmeal Biscuit Topping

Biscuits, of course, don't have to be relegated to the breakfast table as this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine demonstrates. Biscuit dough is a classic topping for cobblers and can be used for shortcakes as well. Here the crunch of the cornmeal adds an extra dimension to a favorite summer dessert.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup sugar, divided

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, divided

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

2 baskets (12 oz.) hulled strawberries, halved

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen rhubarb cut in 1/2-inch slices

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

3 tablespoons chilled butter, diced

1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cloves. Add fruit and toss to coat. Transfer to 10-inch glass pie plate. Mix remaining 1 cup flour, remaining 1/3 cup sugar, cornmeal, baking powder and soda, and salt and cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually add buttermilk, tossing with fork until moist clumps form. Spoon evenly over topping and bake at 400 degrees until golden brown and filling is tender, about 25 minutes. Serves 6.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column?

Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.