Southern Biscuits (HC) (2011)

Southern Biscuits features recipes and baking secrets for every biscuit imaginable, including hassle-free easy biscuits to embellished biscuits laced with silky goat butter, crunchy pecans, or tangy pimento cheese.

The traditional biscuits in this book encompass a number of types, from beaten biscuits of the Old South and England, to Angel Biscuits--a yeast biscuit sturdy enough to split and fill but light enough to melt in your mouth. Filled with beautiful photography, including dozens of how-to photos showing how to mix, stir, fold, roll, and knead, Southern Biscuits is the definitive biscuit baking book.

Nathalie Dupree has written or coauthored many cookbooks, including the James Beard award winner Nathalie Dupree's Southern Memories and Shrimp and Grits.

She has appeared on more than 300 television shows and specials, which have shown nationally on PBS, The Learning Channel, and The Food Network. Dupree holds an Advanced Certificate from the Cordon Bleu and has also written extensively for magazines and newspapers. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Cynthia Stevens Graubart is an author and former television producer who began her culinary television production career with New Southern Cooking with Nathalie Dupree in 1985. She is the author of The One-Armed Cook, called the culinary version of What to Expect When You're Expecting. Cynthia and her husband, Cliff, live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Makes 10 cups

If making several batches of biscuits a month, or one biscuit at a time, make a flour-and-fat base mixture to add the milk to at a later time. It will keep several months in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. Combine one part milk or buttermilk with two parts mix for any quantity of biscuits from 4 to 40! Once again, more salt and baking powder are added. This dough can also be used in making coffee cakes, pancakes, waffles, and the like.

10 cups self-rising flour

3 teaspoons salt

5 teaspoons cream of tartar

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups chilled shortening, lard, or butter,

roughly cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Fork-sift or whisk the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and baking powder in a very large bowl. Scatter the shortening over the flour and work in by rubbing fingers with the shortening and flour as if snapping thumb and fingers together (or use two forks or knives, or a pastry cutter) until the mixture looks like well-crumbled feta cheese, with no piece larger than a pea.

Shake the bowl occasionally to allow the larger pieces of fat to bounce to the top of the flour, revealing the largest lumps that still need rubbing.

Store the mix in the refrigerator in an airtight container until ready to use.