Basic Plain Biscuits Recipe

Every cook, whether professional or amateur, should know how to make basic plain biscuits for several reasons:

1. Versatility: Basic biscuits can be served with a wide variety of dishes. They can be paired with savory dishes like soups, stews, or fried chicken or used for sweet applications, such as strawberry shortcake, or as a base for desserts like cobbler. Knowing how to make them adds a versatile option to your culinary repertoire.
2. Quick and Easy: Biscuits are relatively quick and easy to make, requiring minimal ingredients and equipment. This simplicity makes them a convenient side dish that can be prepared in a pinch.
3. Comfort Food: Biscuits are a quintessential comfort food, and being able to make a batch of warm, freshly baked biscuits can provide a sense of homey comfort to yourself and others. They are perfect for breakfast, brunch, or just as a satisfying snack.
4. Cost-Effective: Making biscuits at home is usually more cost-effective than buying them pre-made. You can control the quality of ingredients and customize them to your preferences while saving money.
5. Fundamental Baking Skills: Biscuits provide an excellent opportunity to practice fundamental baking skills like mixing, handling dough, and proper leavening techniques. These skills can serve as a foundation for more complex baking endeavors.
6. Control Over Ingredients: When you make biscuits from scratch, you have control over the ingredients, allowing you to tailor them to dietary restrictions, flavor preferences, and ingredient quality. You can choose to use whole wheat flour, add herbs, or adjust the level of sweetness to suit your needs.
7. Impress Others: Being able to whip up a batch of homemade biscuits can impress your family, friends, or guests. They will appreciate the effort and the delicious result.
8. Independence: Knowing how to make basic plain biscuits means you’re less reliant on pre-packaged or fast-food options. It’s a step towards greater culinary self-sufficiency.
9. Building Confidence: Baking biscuits is a great way to build confidence in the kitchen. Once you master the basics, you can experiment with different variations and techniques, boosting your overall cooking confidence.
10. Tradition and Heritage: Biscuits have a long history in many culinary traditions; learning to make them can connect you to your heritage. It’s a way to carry on culinary traditions and share them with future generations.

Mastering the art of making basic plain biscuits is a valuable culinary skill that every cook should have in their repertoire. Biscuits are versatile, easy-to-make comfort food that can be enjoyed in various contexts and offer opportunities to practice essential baking skills. Plus, they can be customized to suit individual tastes and dietary needs, making them a worthwhile addition to any cook’s skill set.

Easy plain biscuits recipe

This is a yummy biscuit you can cut into any shape with a biscuit cutter. It’s a great recipe for kids to follow, being neither fiddly nor time-consuming. Its dough can be used as a base for making a variety of other flavors, as dried nuts, chocolate chips, coconut chips, or chopped nuts can be added to these biscuits. You can also add flavors like vanilla, lime, or lemon and use a biscuit cutter to make them into shapes to give an absolutely yummy biscuit.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare The Tray For Baking

• Have at least two baking trays covered with baking parchment for each batch of biscuits to chill and cook on.
• Set both of them aside.

Combine dry Ingredients

• Add the flour to a mixing bowl.
• Add the sugar and mix thoroughly.

Add Other Ingredients

• Add the butter to the combined dry ingredients.
• Rub only your fingertips in the butter until you have a fine breadcrumb-like mixture.
• With the butter evenly mixed in, make a well at the center and add the syrup and the lightly beaten egg.
• Mix thoroughly, drawing in any flour that is at the side of the bowl, and stop once a ball is formed.

Roll The Dough

• Create enough clean space for rolling on a work surface, and place the ball of dough on it.
• Share the dough into two and squash each into an even-sized flattish disc.
• Either roll the dough straight away as it is soft and pliable. Otherwise, you can cover and chill until ready for use.

Cooking Tip: Using extra flour for rolling toughens the dough; to check this, roll your dough between two sheets of baking parchment without additional flour following these steps:

Put one disk of dough on a sheet of baking parchment.

Using either your hands or a rolling pin, gently squash the dough down and cover with a second sheet of parchment.

Now use the rolling pin to properly roll the dough until it is 5mm thick all over.

If the top sheet crinkles as you roll, pause to pull it off and smooth it down, and continue the rolling.

For perfectly-even rolling, rolling guides are available at Specialist Shops.

While still sandwiched between the two parchments,  transfer the sheet of rolled dough to a baking tray ensuring that they are not too close together as the dough usually spreads a little on being baked.

With the tray evenly spaced out in the oven, cook the biscuits for 12-16 minutes depending on the oven you are using.

Cooking Tip: Be particularly mindful of the first biscuits that you bake until you get accustomed to both the recipe and your oven.

Cool And Keep

Get the trays off the oven when the biscuits are evenly cooked (when they are just starting to form a golden brown color).

Carefully lift the hot and fragile biscuits off the baking trays onto a cooling rack.

Allow the biscuits to cool completely before you store them.

Servings

• Yields 24-30 biscuits.

How Best To Serve The Biscuits

They are best when served warm.  Although, I will admit that like them just fine cold with a cup of coffee or a glass of milk.

How Best To Store The Biscuits

• Cool and place the biscuits between layers of parchments in an air-tight tin or plastic container.

How Long To Store Biscuits

• If cooled and properly packaged, the biscuits can be stored for up to one week. if properly packaged they can be frozen for months.

Biscuit Tips

• In making the dough, you can use your hands or a food mixer with the paddle attachment. To avoid the kitchen being filled with clouds of flour, start the mixing process on the lowest setting.
• Try not to work the dough any more than is necessary as overworking toughens it.
• These biscuits will lose their crunch if not cooled properly before storing.