I’ve been meaning to write about these sourdough biscuits for over two weeks now, ever since I put my first batch in the oven, walked back into the kitchen ten minutes later, sniffed the air, and nearly fell over from the sheer deliciousness of the scent alone.
And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. If you’ve seen me post some snapshots of them over the past two weeks and you’ve been waiting for the recipe, hopefully it’s something you’ve been able to look forward to rather than wring your hands in desperation over the delay. Hopefully reading these words is a small pleasure that anticipation has only heightened.
(I do believe that this are, in fact, the sparkliest bits of life—those tiny but highly anticipated moments.)
Biscuit-eating is one of those for me, especially when it’s a leftover biscuit that I can warm in the oven and eat with my cheesy scrambled eggs in the morning. Or a cold biscuit, wrapped carefully in wax paper, that calls to me with its craggy golden bits just begging to be prised off and eaten at 3 PM while standing up at the counter and paging through holiday catalogs that arrived that day in the mail.
Another thing? Looking forward to getting in my bed each night to read a few pages of The Starless Sea, the new novel by the author of The Night Circus.
Magical is a paltry adjective to describe the writing (and the subject matter too). On the phone today, while walking in the cold at midday to pick up soup for lunch, I tried to tell my mom what it was about but I ended up just fumbling over my words, unable to explain the depth of the storytelling: the intelligence, the nuance, the way it pulls you in such that you turn each page as if you’re unwrapping a gift.
More things, you ask? Turning on music at night and selecting a song that I used to listen to on repeat years ago, only to find it still stirs something deeply in my chest. Tonight that was “Delicate” by Damien Rice. And lately I can’t stop listening to this Old Dominion song, which I suspect will have the same effect on me if I turn it on in ten years.
But back to the biscuits: To be honest, the main reason it’s taken me so long is that whenever I sit down to start writing up the recipe, I end up making another batch.
This isn’t exaggeration for dramatic effect. I’ve made four batches in the past two weeks. Each batch was unplanned, then I sat down and typed a few sentences of the recipe, and figured might as well throw some in the oven while I write.
Because, my friends, they are that quick. And that easy. And unlike regular biscuits (which are equally easy and quick), they make excellent use of an otherwise wasted ingredient: your discarded sourdough starter.
Since I launched myself into a serious sourdough kick a month or so ago (I am DETERMINED to master chewy, crusty sourdough bread at home just like these guys do), I’ve been keeping my sourdough starter out on the counter and feeding it daily. If you aren’t baking regularly, you certainly don’t need to do this. You can keep yours in the refrigerator and just feed it weekly (or less, if you want!). But I’m really pushing myself to practice, so regular feeding it is.
That means that every single day (!) I have to “toss” or discard a big portion of my starter. It’s bizarre to me that anyone ever decided to call this discard when you absolutely should never throw it away. It’s a perfectly good ingredient. It’s just not suitable for bread-baking, if you aren’t using commercial yeast, because it’s past the window of being active enough to cause your bread to rise.
But it’s still flavorful with that slight sourdough tang, and it’s flour and water! So you can use it in all kinds of recipes, from chocolate cake to crackers. There are lots of great recipes out there that are designed specifically for excess sourdough starter, but you can also just experiment with adding it into any recipe you like (pretty much). Just take the weight of your discard starter, and subtract that amount of flour and liquid from the recipe. So if you have 100 grams of starter, subtract 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of liquid from your recipe. Depending on your recipe, that might be milk or water.
But of all the recipes I’ve tried (from pumpkin loaf to waffles to cinnamon raisin swirl bread), these biscuits are easily my favorite. They’re buttery and flaky with crunchy, crisp edges. They take just a few minutes to mix up, and about 20 minutes to bake, so I can make the dough while prepping dinner and bake them so they’re on the table, warm and inviting, when the meal is ready.
They also have an intoxicating scent, and I don’t use that adjective lightly. I’ve already waxed poetic about this in my most recent sourdough post, but imagine the smell of melting butter and freshly baked biscuits—the normal kind—and then something else, something deeper and richer, like bread right from the oven but more intensely yeasty.
Another great thing about these (and all biscuits) is what a blank canvas they can be. In the ingredients, I suggest adding cheese or black pepper, but don’t stop there. You could add fresh or dried herbs and spices. You could do, say, a pizza version with dried oregano and chopped sundried tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. You could go the cacio e pepe route (one of my go-tos) by adding tons of freshly ground black pepper and a generous fistful of freshly grated Pecorino cheese. You could add a drizzle of tahini and black sesame seeds, or a spoonful of miso and togarashi spice.
I could go on (and on) but you get the point.
The original recipe comes from King Arthur Flour, and I’ve tweaked it a bit to get it to the point that feels right for me. For one, I’ve doubled it because it was making a mere four large biscuits at first, which—between you and me—is frankly just not enough. I’ve also adjusted the amount of starter called for, and this can be the trickiest bit of the recipe.
Starters vary greatly in consistency: when they haven’t been fed, they’ll be much more dense and liquidy, and when they’re at the peak of their activity, they’re filled with air bubbles and gas, so a cup would weigh far less. Therefore, it’s helpful to use weights (as I always prefer to do with baking), but your starter won’t necessarily be the exact same consistency as mine…or even the same day to day.
Dough before adding the starter, after cutting in the butter.
So I really encourage you to use the amount of starter called for as simply a guide. Start by adding the smallest amount, and begin to mix the dough to bring it together. If it’s too dry, add more starter. Stop as soon as the dough feels shaggy but still has plenty of dry spots.
Dough after adding the starter; this is the the consistency you want.
You don’t want a very wet dough, and these photos should hopefully give you a good sense of what texture you’re aiming for. If you add too much, don’t fret! Don’t throw in more flour! Just shape the biscuits as best you can and know that they’ll be slightly denser and less flaky, but delicious nonetheless. If you add way too much starter and the dough is too sticky to shape into a rectangle, just use a big spoon and drop the dough by 1/4 or 1/3-cupfuls onto your parchment-lined sheet. Cover them in grated cheese and eat them with soup.
My mom made drop biscuits all the time growing up, and the technique is exactly that: a basic biscuit dough that’s much wetter, and therefore more batter-like but still stiff and thick. So, it’s a win-win! You can’t mess up!
Buttery Sourdough Biscuits
Makes 8 large or 10 medium biscuits
2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
16 tablespoons (226g, 2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup to 2 cups (340g to 454g) sourdough starter, unfed or discard
3/4 cup (roughly 75g) freshly grated cheese (cheddar, Parmesan, and Gruyere are good), optional
freshly ground black pepper, optional
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients using a fork or a pastry blender until the butter is in roughly small pea-sized lumps; some should be smaller and some a bit bigger.
If you’re adding pepper or cheese, add it now. This is also the time to stir in any other add-ins (think fresh or dried herbs, dried fruit, and so on).
Stir in the sourdough starter, starting with the smaller amount. Depending on how liquid-y your starter is, you may need more or less starter. You want the texture of the dough to be shaggy with some dry areas still: not too sticky and wet. Err on the side of less starter; you can always add more. If your dough is too wet, it’ll still be delicious, the biscuits will just be less flaky and more like drop biscuits.
Once your dough looks shaggy, turn it out onto a lightly floured counter. I often turn it out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and shape it right there, so I don’t have to move the biscuits once I cut them.
Using your hands, carefully begin to press the dough into a solid mass, folding it onto itself over and over. This is harder at the beginning when there are a lot of dry spots, so just scoop those up onto the top of the dough then fold the sides over onto the middle, press down gently, and repeat. Aim to fold it into a rectangular shape.
You want to focus on the folding motion to bring the dough together, rather than kneading it into a cohesive mass. The folding will help create flaky layers!
Once it is in a good, pretty well-formed rectangle, stop. If it seems like the layers aren’t fully sticking together, that’s okay! They’ll meld together in the oven.
Using a very sharp knife or a biscuit cutter, cut the dough into shapes (squares, rectangles, or circles).
Separate the biscuits by a few inches on a parchment-lined baking sheet. If you want to gild the lily, you can brush the tops lightly with melted butter or cream, but I rarely bother. If you’re making a cheese version, you can (and should) also sprinkle them with more grated cheese.
Bake the biscuits for about 20 minutes. They’re ready when they are dark golden brown on the very edges and corner, and lightly golden brown everywhere else on the surface.
Remove from the oven and let cool enough to eat warm!