Sourdough Biscuits I Made It

Sourdough Biscuits

pointsevenout 10 years ago
Recipe by Frankieanne: Sourdough Biscuits/saved
I'm venturing into sourdough. Starter has been fermenting for 2 weeks and is ready. Made a bread loaf that came out with a crust too hard for me. Upon research I found that fats make the crust less offensive to me.
So I tried this recipe. It has good sourdough flavor. Made biscuits and gravy for this evenings meal. The crust is harder than a standard dough biscuit crust but very manageable. A very soft interior.
No appreciable rise to the biscuit, with 3 leaveners, even though I let it rise for an hour on the stove-top while the oven pre-warmed. Good thing it had the flavor I wanted.
Thought I was going to be able to chide Frankie about using a glass to cut the dough. Used a 3" biscuit cutter with the dough from 1/2 to 3/4". Still didn't get to 1" when done. My pic looks very comparable to hers.
Recipe made 8 biscuits at 3" diameter.
Mother liked it but couldn't tell me if it was the biscuit or gravy flavor.
I would like to get more rise out of this recipe. Wonder how to do that.
Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

Thank you for trying these out, pso. I know what a biscuit expert you are. Its funny you made these today because I was thinking earlier that I need to get a starter going.
I've always found sourdough crusts to be harder than a standard crust, even if you buy it in a store. I didn't know about the fats factor though. It sounds interesting.
I didn't have good luck with a rise on my biscuits either. Did you have good luck with the bread? I'm not certain how much reading you want to do but this is kind of interesting. Its not biscuits but some of these gals sound like they know what they are talking about.
Thanks again, sir. :)
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5818/sourdough-bread-will-not-rise

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Have already been to thefreshloaf.
Fat is only one piece of the crust puzzle. Temp makes a difference too. My first loaf was done at 400F. I'm thinking about dropping the temp to 350F.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

I think I'll have to make another starter and play along. :-)

Flag
NPMarie 10 years ago said:

I have never made sourdough anything, so I'm not an expert at all..they sure look good and I love biscuits & gravy! Nice pic Points:-)

Flag
mommyluvs2cook 10 years ago said:

Those do look good! I too have never made anything with sourdough. I'm surprised since I love the stuff!

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Sourdough uses natural occurring yeast which has a (supposedly) slower rise rate. The good thing is one doesn't have to buy anymore yeast from the store anymore. The bad thing is that it takes one to two weeks to culture the dough. The good thing is the starter (or sponge) will last for generations, with a good feeding routine.
Biscuits and pancakes and waffles and breads, here we come.
Two cups of flour. Two cups of room temp tap water which has been set out overnight to kill the chlorine or it will kill the yeast you are trying to nurture. And time.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Giving the starter time to rise is the key. I'm in the process of making a loaf of bread that I had to let rise overnight (about 6 hours) in which it tripled in volume. The first hour didn't look like it did anything.
So in making these biscuits again I'll do more time on the rise.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

What starter recipe did you use, pso? I have mine but I know there are many more out there.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

I'll post it soon. I think it has problems that I'm working through.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

OK. Thank you!

Flag
JoeyJoan 10 years ago said:

You ladies are awesome, I am yeast a phobic and walk away from any and all bread recipes. Those biscuits look amazing.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

Oh, you should dive in, JoeyJoan. I think you could handle yeast from the looks of things. :)

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

We will walk you through any problems or fears of yeast use and make you more philic.
(He cleared his throat and said with a deep voice).

Flag
JoeyJoan 10 years ago said:

one of these days I just may. ;)

Flag
JoeyJoan 10 years ago said:

Pointsevenout, shame on me for assuming. . Oh and thank you for the new word. I had to look it up. I am 55 and still I love to learn. New words is a favorite to learn.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Since you are the author of the idea of a first rise technique on biscuits I believe I will use your recipe as a guinea pig.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

Awww, thanks, sir! :)

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Can't tell if that is a left handed comment.

Flag
JoeyJoan 10 years ago said:

I am left handed :)

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Dough is on it's first rise. Will give it 7 to 8 hours overnight to do it's thing. I left out the baking powder and soda because we are going to treat this like a bread recipe. If it rises well I believe I'll roll out and cut half the dough with a 3" biscuit cutter and shape the other half into small boules, turning any cut marks under to try to seal the CO2 from escaping.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Well something happened to the starter.
Got no rise at all from the dough kneaded last night.
I know I created the gluten because the dough was stretching back.
I'm thinking 2 things could have happened.
This is the first time I used a food processor to knead the dough.
I used fermented raisin water to charge the starter.
Will have to go back and ensure my starter is active before proceeding on again with this biscuit experiment.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

I think you're supposed to be a little more gentle with sourdough, pso. I think I heard that somewhere. I'm gonna start my starter today.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

You could be right. The starter is still bubbly. So hand stir and kneed it is!

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

I always stir my starter with a wooden spoon, too, pso. No metal.
Started mine today. Used my recipe 'cause it always works for me. :)

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

A note on kneading. Starting with a bubbly starter and using your recipe, I kneaded for 10 minutes, rested for 20 minutes (the dough and me), then kneaded for 10 more minutes.
Finally at about 7 minutes into the second knead the dough relaxed and became stretchable without tearing and had that smooth soft shiny baby butts look. But I still could not get a window pane. Nonetheless I oiled it and am waiting until morning.
This time went ahead and used all the ingredients in the recipe.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Dough has risen. It has a dry crusty top layer to it. Seems that spritzing it with oil or water every so often is in order to keep from forming that crust.
Lightly kneaded a few times to turn that crustiness in. Going to rest it a few minutes then divide into biscuits. One half being cut with a biscuit cutter and the other half cut and smoothed under as I would do rolls.

Flag
lovebreezy 10 years ago said:

Did you have plastic wrap on it over-night? I know you oiled it but maybe the air still got to it with the rise.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

One half yielded 4 biscuits cut out with a 3" cutter so I made 4 rolls with the other half. Both are 1/2" thick. Now waiting on the second rise.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

How's it going now?

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Just did a big write up on the results and punched a wrong button and my chapter went bye-bye.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Nine hours initial rise time. Five hours secondary rise time after shaping. Three quarters of an inch total rise. Half inch dough to start and a 1/1/4" biscuit result.
Taste was yeasty but got thick when chewed. With all the effort in preparing and waiting, I believe I'll stick to standard fare biscuits just for the ease of it. Nothing super spectacular in the end result to make me do it again.
All the wait time gave me an opportunity to cyber surf about sourdough biscuits.
None of them advocated waiting on a second rise. They all treated them like regular biscuits with salt, powder and soda as leaveners. Some even used store bought yeast. So I guess they were using the sourdough starter just for the flavoring.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

LB: No plastic wrap, just draped it with a tea towel. I'll try using the plastic wrap next time and the tea towel. But it's going to be back to bread recipes.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

According to some of the cyber-space comments, plastic wrap helps keep air away from the dough to help keep it from getting a skin especially on an extended rise like in sourdough. But I just don't see it that way.
There is a whole lot of air in the bowl with the dough.
Maybe if I were to oil the dough and plastic wrap too and bring them into intimate contact like one would do a custard to keep it from forming a skin.
Some places even suggest flipping the dough every hour, but I can't see that either.

Flag
lovebreezy 10 years ago said:

I spray with a non-stick, then loosely put the plastic wrap over that.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

I used to do that too but on regular bread using store bought yeast and there was no problem.

Flag
frankieanne 10 years ago said:

My starter is bubbling away. I'll try a different sourdough biscuit when its ready. Not my own. I'm sure I can find one here!

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

It has to be fed at least 3 times until it starts doubling in size before it's ready to ensure the starter has enough of a yeast colony to do the job.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

I'm going to try this recipe again, bumping up the flour and baking powder amounts. Right after I polish off a batch of biscuits I just made.

Flag
pointsevenout 10 years ago said:

Made another sourdough biscuit with success. That's two in a row. Now I'm sure yours will be next.

Flag