Stir 'N Roll Biscuits

 I know I have shared many yummy biscuit recipes on here throughout the years, but do humor me and allow me to share just one more!  This Stir 'N Roll Biscuit recipe has to be one of the quickest and easiest biscuit recipes I have ever baked!  

We wanted biscuits to serve with the chicken we were having for supper today (Tuesday) and so I decided to try out this recipe I found in one of my favorite cookbooks. Literally every single recipe I have made from this book has been a real gem!

 This is about the fourth or fifth recipe I have tried and each and every one has been a gem.  Quick and easy, simple recipes that have all turned out perfectly.

This biscuit recipe appealed because it only used a very few ingredients and I was intrigued by the instructions.  Stirred biscuits?  No shortening or butter?  Really?  Read on!

 

Instead of butter or shortening, this simple recipe uses vegetable oil. I used light olive oil today.  I tend to buy that when I get oil these days and so does my sister.

The recipe had an adaptation for using Buttermilk. We had buttermilk and so I used that adaptation with excellent results.  

 

My dough was a bit on the dry side and in retrospect I should have added a bit more buttermilk to the mixture, but I  always like to do things exactly as written the first time I do them.  I was also afraid of overworking them. 

I did take a bit of license and added a thin sliver of butter to the top of each one before I popped them into the oven.  This added a bit of a lovely buttery golden brown crunch to the tops, so I highly recommend it!

Because my dough was a little bit shaggy and I added just that little sliver of butter to the tops I ended up with some crisp buttery bits that were incredibly moreish.  We quite enjoyed them actually.

So I highly recommend you do the same! (add the butter that is)

 

To go along with a vintage recipe I thought I would share a vintage plate.  This was my maternal Grandmother Nina's plate, given to her by her sister Addie and her husband Ralph Connell on the occasion of my grandparent's wedding in August of 1928.  Addie (Adelaide) would pass away three short years later leaving Ralph a widower with young children.

It is a beautiful plate with a pearlescent almost opalescent finish. My sister surmises, and probably quite rightly so, that in those days people did not go out and buy people wedding gifts, instead gifting them with some special item from their own collections of pretties.

My sister specializes in antiquities. She has a page on Instagram. You can follow her here. Lost Lovelies Found.

There are a great many scratches on the surface of the plate. I would imagine many a cake was cut and served from it over the almost hundred years or more it has been in existence, or at least in our family. What a wonderful heirloom my sister has in this.

I love knowing that we can still use dishes and things that were bringing pleasure to people  in our family so very long ago.  There is a special continuity to that.  This is a plate that only ever very rarely gets used today because it is precious to us!

 

It was obviously very precious to my mother as well.  Precious enough that thankfully she left a note with it so that we would know its history and where it came from.  I love that. 

I also think it is pretty wonderful that my mother has two daughters who recognize the importance and value of these things.  I hope that one day my sister's daughters will feel the same way about them. I suspect that they will. They are their mother's daughters.

 

Back to the recipe though. This recipe is very unusual in that there is no cutting in or even rubbing in of the fat needed to make these easy biscuits.

You simply mix together some oil and milk, or buttermilk and stir it into the dry ingredients with a spoon until the mixture begins to come away from the sides of the bowl. (if your dough seems a bit too dry, do add a bit more milk.)

 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  As with any biscuit recipe a light hand is the secret to producing a perfect result.  Do not overwork them. 

It says to knead the dough lightly on a lightly floured surface ten times, but if your dough comes together nicely before that, then just stop and  pat or gently roll them out. 1/2 inch thick will do.

 

I used a small drinking glass to cut them out, as most women probably would have done back in the day.  A sharp metal cutter would have given a nicer finish I believe. I couldn't find one so I used the glass.

Its important when you are cutting out biscuits such as these that you use a sharp up and down cutting  motion, never twisting the cutter.  When you twist the cutter you seal the dough and you end up with lop sided biscuits. 

In other words, they won't rise as well as they should.

 

All in all, these are beautiful, light and flaky biscuits. (As I hope you can see from the above photo.)  I could not resist indulging in one fresh from the oven, hot and buttered and spread with a bit of raspberry jam.

These would go very well with soups, stews, or salads, breakfasts (For breakfast cut them a bit larger. I would use a 3 inch cutter. You will only get 8 or 9 in that case.) or even on their own with some butter and jam or peanut butter.  

They went very well with the fried chicken also. Yum!!  Quick, easy, no faffing about and delicious. In short, perfect!

 

Stir 'N Roll Biscuits

Yield: Makes 12

Author: Marie Rayner

prep time: 8 Mincook time: 12 Mintotal time: 20 Min

A favourite recipe from the 1969 edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Super easy and incredibly delicious! See notes for Buttermilk version.

Ingredients

• 2 cups (280g) all purpose/plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup (160ml) milk (or buttermilk, see note below)
• a tiny bit of cold butter

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.  Line a baking sheet with some baking paper. Set aside.
2. Measure the flour into a bowl along with the baking powder and salt.  Stir to combine.
3. Whisk together the oil and milk.  Add to the flour mixture and stir with a spoon until the mixture begins to leave the sides of the bowl.
4. Tip out onto a floured surface. Knead lightly 10 times. Pat or roll out until 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 12 rounds using a sharp 1 inch round biscuit cutter. (Use a sharp tapping motion and try not to twist the cutter for a better rise.)
5. Place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Set a tiny flat sliver of cold butter on top of each.
6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until well risen and golden brown. Serve warm

notes:

For buttermilk biscuits, replace the milk with an equal amount of buttermilk, reduce the amount of baking powder to 2 tsp. Add 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda/baking soda to the dry ingredients.

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