Homemade Cheddar Bay-style biscuits
Ingredients:
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour (300 grams)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder (14 grams)
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt (3 grams)
- 1 stick frozen butter (grated - 4 ounces - 113 grams)
- 1 1⁄4 cup milk or buttermilk (280 to 320 grams)
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (3 oz/85 g)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1⁄4 teaspoon MSG (optional)
Buttery herb Topping
- 3 tablespoons melted butter (to be painted on top after baking)
- 1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1⁄4 teaspoon dried parsley
Directions:
Preheat oven to 475 F (245 C).
Measure or weigh your flour, add baking powder and salt, and mix well. Grate frozen butter into the bowl with the flour. Stir to combine until the butter is fully coated with flour. Add shredded cheddar cheese, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, and MSG.
Put the bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes. It's important to keep the butter as cold as possible through this process.
Combine the milk or buttermilk with the cold flour/butter to bring it together as a dough. Stir no more than 15 times. Overworking the dough at this stage could cause your finished biscuits to be tougher. Your dough at the end of 15 stirs will be very shaggy and not smooth at all.
Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop out dough portions and place them on a parchment-lined sheet pan. You should be able to get about 9 quarter-cup-sized scoops out of the mixture. If you want the drop biscuits to be a bit more uniform, you can put some water in a bowl, dip your fingers into the water, and use wet hands to shape the dough mounds just a little bit. Try not to get them too wet.
Bake at 475 degrees F (245 C) for around 15 to 20 minutes. Check around the 12-minute mark to make sure they do not brown too much.
When biscuits are done, transfer them from your baking pan onto a cooling rack to stop the bottoms from cooking further.
Melt 3 tablespoons of butter and add garlic powder and dried parsley to create a buttery herb topping. Paint the buttery herb topping on top of each biscuit. About a teaspoon of topping per biscuit.
Serve and enjoy.
Notes:
The recipe calls for MSG, but you can omit it if you want; it will just lose a bit of savory intensity. Other types of cheese would work as well. Maybe a smoked Gouda?
Self-rising flour? If you want to use self-rising flour, just substitute an exact amount of self-rising flour for the all-purpose flour, then remove the baking powder and salt, and you should be set. Self-rising flour already contains salt and baking powder.