Cooking With Spite: Biscuits

Welcome to "Cooking With Spite," the first in a series of instructional cooking videos where the main ingredient is revenge. In this installment, we're making basic buttermilk biscuits to spite a local biscuit-oriented restaurant that was rude to my wife on the phone. It didn’t have to be like this. But it turns out, biscuits are super easy and you can make your own! Biscuits are a forgiving recipe, so make them whatever size and shape you want. Laminate them into layers, chill them overnight, sprinkle with spices, whatever. Taste the biscuits.

Ingredients!

400 grams all-purpose flour
10 grams baking soda
4 grams baking powder
6 grams fine sea salt
15 grams granulated sugar
227 grams salted butter, chilled and cubed
1½ cups cold buttermilk
1 large egg (egg wash)
1 Tbsp milk (egg wash)

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prep your baking sheet with parchment or a baking mat.
   Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Using a pastry cutter or fork, quickly cut butter into flour mixture until it forms pea-size crumbs and is uniformly mixed. (For flaky biscuits, you want the butter to remain cold.)

3. Make a well in center of the dry ingredients and add buttermilk. Mix until the dough comes mostly together. Don't over mix it.

4. On a floured surface, knead your dough a few times to incorporate the butter, and shape as desired. Dust your dough with flour, and carefully cut straight down. (If you twist your cutter or slide your knife, the biscuits might not get as tall. They'll still be good though.) Put those biscuits on your baking sheet.

5. Mix up the remaining egg and milk (or cream or buttermilk), brush the tops only, and sprinkle daintily with sea salt.

6. Bake until pretty, roughly 13-15 minutes. Make breakfast sandwiches or just eat the things with butter and jam.