Victorian Milk Bread

I know that many of you know that my new "thing" since I've been in London is bread making. I will admit that I have had a reasonable amount of success, and, admittedly, a few failures. Fortunately, complete failures rarely occur anymore. Now, it is just a matter of tweaking a recipe, or finding a different one entirely because I don’t like something about it.

I’ve learned so much about bread making and I hope to impart some of that information to you here at some point, but for now I just wanted to share this picture with you. It is a picture of my first attempt at Victorian Milk Bread. It was great tasting bread, although the texture was a little too dense for our taste to use it as an “everyday” bread. That being said, I will probably still make it again at some point.

My real joy, well other than eating my efforts of course, is the picture. I mean, isn’t that the most beautiful loaf of bread you’ve ever seen in your life? (Yeah, yeah, I’m prejudiced to my own work, but who isn’t right?)

Buttermilk Biscuits

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to let everyone know that the cookbook is coming along nicely. I've been rethinking the size and layout, but I haven't put together any more cover ideas yet.

I have been trying out some new recipes, though, and I wanted to post a rave review of the best buttermilk biscuit recipe ever. I don't remember where I found it, but it is the best biscuit recipe we've found. It's especially good with gravy for breakfast!

Enjoy!

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup vegetable shortening, chilled
¾ cup buttermilk, chilled

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda until well mixed. Add the shortening and toss to coat with the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender, 2 knives, or your fingertips, and working quickly, cut or rub in the shortening until the mixture is the consistency of coarse meal.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour in the buttermilk all at once, then stir with a fork just until a soft dough forms that pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Preheat an oven to 450ºF (232ºC).

Gather the dough into a ball and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead very gently 5 or 6 times just until the dough holds together. Gently pat or roll out the dough about 1/2 inch (12 mm) thick. Using a round biscuit cutter 2 or 2 ½ inches (5 or 6 cm) in diameter, cut out as many rounds as possible, pressing straight down and lifting the cutter straight up without twisting. Place the dough rounds about 1 ½ inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Very gently knead the scraps together 2 or 3 times and cut as before. Do not reroll any additional scraps.

Bake until evenly browned, 10-12 minutes. Serve hot from the oven.

Makes 12-14 biscuits (We like thicker bicuits, so I only get about 9)