81 Layer Biscuits from Travis

This memory for 81 Layer Bisquits comes from my pal Travis.

Travis and I met here in the Bay Area, and some time back he decided to go back home to his roots in North Carolina. Through the magic of facebook, we stay in touch and he was eager to share for #FoodMemories17. Remember –  If you want to submit your own memory – check out the Sharing Our Memories Post or visit the #FoodMemories17 page for more detials

81 Layer Biscuits

Frank: So Traviswhat is your food memory you want to share?
Travis: I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, and when I think of food memories, one food comes to mind immediately: biscuits. My mother always made fresh biscuits with every meal. We never had biscuits out of a can.
F: So you mean you never cheated and used a can? or those frozen bagged ones?
T: hmm not unless you count playing with store bought biscuit dough instead of playdough at a baby sitters house; hence my nickname “Mama’s Little Dough Boy.”
F: <Smiles> You do know that this will come back to haunt you now that I know that…
T: Yes.. I know.. ok so back to Bisquits.. Several decades later, I still like playing with dough. I often try different recipes. Like many other home and self-taught bakers, at some piont I decided to alter a recipe for biscuits that had become my “go to favorites”. My goal was to see what woudl happen if I added a variation of a flaky pastry technique called lamination.
F: Is that the one that you layer butter between dough for what seems like forever and role it out?
T: Pretty much. If you’ve ever made homemade croissants or puff pastry, you’ll have used this trick. Lamination creates layers of butter in a pastry so that it will “puff” in the oven and give unparalleled rise to dough. If you’ve never laminated dough before, this is a really simple process and the result is so gratifying.
F: Did it work?
T: Sure did. This variation of biscuits have layer upon layer of flaky deliciousness and are perfect paired with any of the classics: tomato biscuit, sausage biscuit, gravy biscuit, ham biscuit, fried chicken biscuit or just the simple perfection of some homemade honey butter. Honestly, I had two of these babies today with nothing on them at all. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Fair warning, they’re slightly addictive. 
 

81 Layer Biscuits

Ingredients:

  • 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
  • 2 Teaspoons Sugar
  • 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
  • ½ Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 ¼ Cup Heavy Cream
  • ¼ Cup Unsalted Butter (melted & cooled to room temp)
  • Self Rising Flour for dusting

Recipe:

To make the dough

  1. In large bowl, whisk the AP (All Purpose) Flour, Sugar, Baking Powder & Salt together ’til well combined.
  2. Add Heavy Cream & stir with wooden spoon to form dough. (Note: At this stage the dough will seem slightly dry.)
  3. Knead in the bowl for about 30 seconds.
  4. Lay out a tea towel and dust heavily with SR (Self Rising) Flour.
  5. Turn dough out onto tea towel and form into roughly 8×12” rectangle. (Note: you can do this by hand or a floured rolling pin)

Laminate Dough:

  1. Brush the top of dough with the melted Butter and sift a layer of SF (Self Rising) Flour on top of the butter.
  2. Fold into thirds by taking the bottom third of the dough and turn it onto the middle, then pull down the top third down to create 3 layers, exactly as you would fold a piece of paper to place in a legal envelope.
  3. Press out (or roll out) the dough into a rectangle again & rotate 180 degrees.
  4. Repeat this step 3 more times, remember to brush with Butter & sift with SF (Self Rising) Flour before folding.
  5. In all total you will end up with 81 fold. (First fold creates 3 layers, second fold creates 9, then 27 & finally 81 with fourth fold).

 

Ready for Baking:

  1. Heavily butter an 8×8” baking pan and press dough into pan in an even layer.
  2. Cool in refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours. 
  3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
  4. Turn dough out upside down onto wax paper.
  5. Using a very sharp knife, cut 9 squares with single quick press through the dough, this will ensure a nice rise.
  6. Place onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper, roughly 1 ½” apart.
  7. Bake approx. 15-18 minutes rotating pan halfway through cooking.

 

Note – the orginal of this recipe was adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Cream Biscuits Recipe

 In case some of you have never done the layered dough/butter combination – I found a few youtube videos that will illustrate the different techniques – but in the end, get your hands in it and try for yourself!

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Get Your Food Storytelling & Memories Ready To Share!

Sharing Our Food Storytelling 

That’s right – starting this month I am adding a new feature to BiteTheRoad.com; a communal shared collection called Food Memories Stories Told 2017 that promotes other peoples stories of food, recipes, success and fails. Several folks who already read the blog, had commented about wanting to share ideas and food they themselves had but weren’t up to the managing of a full blog. So I thought it would be fun to allow   BiteTheRoad to offer the “food storytelling” equivilent of my work on Mentorsf.com for the months of October – December. Then revisit it for the New Year.

The Food Memories; Telling Our Story  and Food Memories Stories Told 2017 is part of the BiteTheRoad Guest Series and will be a open format that invites everyone to have a place to share that special recipe, moment, rememerance and even that food mishap still told when people gather. I plan to make super easy –

1) You contact me by filling out a short web-based form,

2) Answer a few strategic questions that will help me figure out what you want ot post, how will be the best way to collect and share it

3) I respond by email or phone with next steps.

Once your content is ready, I work with it to create a post like this and share it out on the BiteTheRoad website and on its companion Facebook page Facebook.com/Bitetheroad. I will also share it out via my twitter account @FVStrona,  the BitetheRoad Tumblr and  Instagram pages and of course I encourage you to share your post to your networks.

So.. Are you ready to share? Come on.. you know you want too….

Get started by visiting the new Food Memories; Telling Our Story How To Page for more instructions. As the posts come in they will be gathered and posted and can also be found Food Memories Stories Told 2017

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