Little House on the Prairie: Biscuits
Little House on the Prairie - Recipe #1
I haven’t started reading the book(s) yet (the first of which is Little House in the Big Woods), so I decided to post something that was likely made often by the Ingalls family.
According to Wikipedia on the History of Biscuits:
The biscuit emerged as a distinct food type in the early 19th century, before the American Civil War. Cooks created a cheaply produced addition for their meals that required no yeast, which was expensive and difficult to store. With no leavening agents except the bitter-tasting pearlash available, beaten biscuits were laboriously beaten and folded to incorporate air into the dough which expanded when heated in the oven causing the biscuit to rise. In eating, the advantage of the biscuit over a slice of bread was that it was harder, and hence kept its shape when wiping up gravy in the popular combination biscuits and gravy.
Anyway - These are PHENOMENAL and rival Cracker Barrel’s finest ;)
Ingredients:
1 cup FROZEN vegan butter (I used Miyoko’s, which I HIGHLY recommend)
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 Tbsp. vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
2 cups self-raising flour (I used King Arthur brand)
3 Tbsp. melted vegan butter
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a liquid measuring cup, stir together vinegar and almond milk. Set aside.
Using a box cheese grater, grate frozen butter into a large bowl (lots of elbow grease required here, but it’s well worth it, I promise!)
Add self-raising flour to grated butter curls and, using your (WASHED!) hands, mix together until combined - should resemble sand/ground meal.
Make a well in the flour/butter mixture and pour in the vegan buttermilk (aka the almond milk/vinegar mixture). Again using your hands, mix until well incorporated. Dough should be sticky.
Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and using floured hands, gently pat into an oval or rectangle shape that is about 1/2 an inch thick.
Fold the dough and pat down again until 1/2 an inch thick (re-flour your hands as necessary). Repeat this step 4 or 5 more times. After the last fold, pat the dough until it is about 3/4 in - 1 inch thick.
Using a round biscuit/cookie cutter (or just the rim of a water glass - I used an Old Fashioned/Rocks glass) cut dough into circles.
Place biscuits onto an ungreased cookie sheet, making sure they are touching.
Using your thumb, lightly press a thumbprint into the middle of each biscuit.
Using a pastry brush or a spoon, spread a thin layer of melted vegan butter atop each biscuit.
Bake for 15 minutes, until biscuits are golden.
Serve with your favorite topping and enjoy!
