Apple Upside-Down Biscuits Recipe - Cookin Canuck (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to an excellent biscuit? ›

The secret to the best biscuits is using very cold butter and baking powder. We've made a lot of biscuits, but this easy biscuits recipe is the one we turn to the most (they are so fluffy!). See our easy drop biscuits and cheese drop biscuits for even easier biscuits.

When you fold the dough, these pieces of butter stack on top of each other, creating rough layers of butter and dough that translate to flakiness once baked. Buttermilk Biscuits get maximum flakiness from a folding step built into the recipe.

If you're resting the dough in the fridge as some recipes instruct, you're multitasking by hydrating the dry ingredients and solidifying the fat. Because cold butter takes longer to melt than room temperature butter, chilled cookies will hold their shape in the oven.

Place the biscuits closer together (about 1/2-inch apart) on the baking sheet to help the biscuits rise taller.

As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.

As it turns out, adding hard-boiled egg yolks to your biscuit dough is a way to ward off an overworked, tough dough that can be the downfall of a butter-based pastry. When the trick is employed, the pastry shatters and then dissolves in your mouth quickly, tasting like a knob of flaky butter.

Keep the oven hot.

When baking buttery treats like biscuits, the key is to bake them at a temperature where the water in the butter turns quickly to steam. This steam is a big part of how the biscuits achieve their height, as it evaporates up and out.

Cover the dough loosely with a kitchen towel and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. Gently pat out the dough some more, so that the rectangle is roughly 10 inches by 6 inches. Cut dough into biscuits using a floured biscuit cutter (or even a glass, though its duller edge may result in slightly less tall biscuits).

Rolling the Dough Out Once

You can't roll out your dough only once for layers and layers of buttery goodness. For flaky layers, fold and roll the dough five times before cutting.

Buttermilk also adds a pleasant tanginess to baked biscuits, and its relatively low levels of fat make it work in recipes that call for any kind of fat, from butter to shortening, and even cream. (Yes, cream can be used as both a liquid and a fat.

What is the best temperature to bake biscuits? ›

A very hot oven is also key to good biscuits. My oven tends to run hot, so I put the temperature at 425°F, but if your oven is cool, you can go up to 450°F.

Heavy cream provides rich butterfat that gives the biscuits tenderness and flavor, as well as moisture from its water content. The formula requires minimal mixing, reducing the risk of too much gluten development.

The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.

Biscuits baked on cookie sheets or jelly roll pans are crisper and slightly darker in color. For softer, fluffier biscuits, bake biscuits in metal baking pans with 1-1/2-to 2-inch sides. Scones and shortcakes can also be baked on cookie sheets or in baking pans.

Pat and roll

Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Pat it into a rough rectangle about 3/4" thick. Fold it into thirds like a letter. Turn the dough 90°, and gently roll it with a floured rolling pin into a circle or rough rectangle about 3/4" thick.

In general, a rolled biscuit of desirable quality has a golden brown, smooth and crisp crust without brown specks, and a tender and flaky crumb; it is expected to be symmetrical in shape with a high height, flat top and straight side (Learning and Food Resource of Oregon State University, 2012, see web references).

Use good butter and dairy

Because biscuit recipes call for so few ingredients, it's important that every one is high quality—you'll really taste the difference. Catherine recommends splurging a bit on a grass-fed butter or European-style butter (now's the time to reach for Kerrygold!).

The two keys to success in making the best biscuits are handling the dough as little as possible as well as using very cold solid fat (butter, shortening, or lard) and cold liquid. When the biscuits hit the oven, the cold liquid will start to evaporate creating steam which will help our biscuits get very tall.