Ken, that's pretty close to the old drop biscuit recipe.
It's the little differences that make the big differences here. "Drop biscuits" refers to a
method first and only coincidentally to a recipe. The recipe that I posted just happens to be an example of the method -- just a coincidental requirement of the dough produced by this recipe. The differences that count -- results of much and varied experimenting with fine-tuning the details -- are in the nature and proportions of the ingredients. Drop biscuits ain't all created equal. For example:
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Cake flour biscuits had less flavor, and their tops were not as crisp.
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Butter gave these biscuits more flavor than lard, Crisco, or any combination.
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Nonfat buttermilk produced texture and flavor not as rich as biscuits made with
low-fat buttermilk.
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Oven temperatures -- biscuits rose well at 500� F, but tops browned too quickly in an oven left at 500� F for the entire baking period.
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Cooling -- in bisuits hot from the oven, internal moisture kept the insides too moist and gluey. The cooling period let the retained internal steam escape.
The lady who developed this recipe tried over a hundred carefully planned variations of the above and taste-tested each batch with volunteer tasters -- an excellent example of how shooters presumably fine-tune their
handloads. I just may include her experiments and her biscuit recipe in
Loading and Testing Custom Cartridges as an excellent model for handloaders. Like a handloader using data from a manual, she started with a recipe (from a 1997 cook book) that gave her good biscuits (but perhaps not as good as they
could be). In the end, she had a recipe for even better biscuits.
If only I could eat 'em ....
Reminds me of a story (most things do <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )
... a syndrome all too familiar here!
