The next stop after unleavened bread is quick breads. Quick breads are the easiest of the leavened breads, as it doesn't require tons of kneading, and it rises while its cooking. Add to this the fact that the leavening ingredients can last indefinately...so long as they are stored apart.
Biscuit dough is one of those that is extremely vesitile, and can be used for more than just biscuits.
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The first thing you need to learn is about baking powder. I said something about it in an earlier blog, but I will repeat it here. Baking powder does not store very well. In fact, in most cases, the baking powder you purchase from the grocery store is probably already mostly dead.
Fortunately, you can store the two ingredients that make up baking powder indefinately. Cream of tartar (a bi-product of wine making) and baking soda (natural mineral). It is 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part of baking soda. When the two are put together, they react and make carbon dioxide gas which creates the lift and air bubbles in bread. They will even react dry, although more slowly...which is why baking powder is often mostly dead by the time it reaches your kitchen.
You are better off purchasing baking soda and cream of tartar seperately. Cream of tartar generally cannot be found at the grocery store in bulk, and purchasing hundreds of those tiny bottles is rediculous...you may have to purchase it from Amazon unless you have a baking supply store near by...the price will be well worth it.
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As an alternative to baking soda, Native Americans and the early European settlers used pearl ash. To create pearl ash, take some ashes from a hardwood fire, mix them with water, and let them settle overnight. In 12 hours, you should have a few peices of charcoal floating on top, a brownish water, and a sludge sitting on the bottom. The water (also known as lye) is put into a different vessel (to seperate it from the sludge at the bottom). The lye is either boiled down or evaporated, and then called "Potash". Potash is then baked to remove the impurities, and then called pearl ash.
In tests I have seen done, pearl ash/potash does provide some leavening...but not nearly as much as baking powder.
We have not yet tried pearl ash, but it was commonly used until baking powder was invented.
As an aside...potash is also common in both soap making and as a fertilizer for grain crops. Was there nothing our ancestors couldn't reuse?
*Common Biscuit Recipe
This is the biscuit recipe from "Better Homes and Garden Cookbook". Remember, there is a difference between a dry cup measure and wet cup measure, and a difference between a teaspoon and tablespoon. Do not mix these up!
2 (dry) cups flour
1 TBPS (tablespoon) baking powder
2 tsp (teaspoon) sugar (or other sweetener)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 (dry) cup fat (lard, butter, shortening, etc)
2/3 (wet) cup milk
I imagine, in an emergency situation, that the sugar and salt can be omitted, and that water can be used instead of milk. It will taste differently, but it when you are hungry, you are hungry.
Stir together all of the dry ingredients. Cut the fat into the dry ingredients until you get coarse crumbs. (To "cut in", take a fork or similar instrument and push the fat into dry ingredients over and over again until it makes little coarse crumbs). Add the milk all at once and stir until dough clings together. On a lightly floured surface, knead ten or twelve times.
(At home, I just go ahead and dump all of the ingredients into a bread machine and let it knead for half the time...I don't know why, but it works just fine. It comes out a lot more like the biscuit dough we purchase in tubes at the grocery store.)
Roll or pat the dough into about 1/2 inch thickness and cut out the biscuits. (You can use a biscuit cutter, but anything will really do...a knife, a can, the dry measuring cup).
Now bake in a 450 degree oven for 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned.
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While camping, you can use a dutch oven; a collapsable camp oven; a tin-foil pack tucked into the ashes.
Another alternative, something which the Roman armies did, would be to make the dough into a coil (snake shape), wind it around a stick, and gently roast it over a fire.
We probably don't need a lecture on what to do with your biscuits when they are finished. You can eat them plain, or use them to sop up your gravy or soup. You can top them with butter. You can top them with jelly. You can top them with a country or sausage gravy. You can use them to make a sandwich.
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Biscuit dough has other uses as well.
According to TV chef Rachel Ray, you can use biscuit dough as a pizza dough. If its as good as her stuffed green pepper stoup, then I'm all for it.
According to Pilsbury, you can top your caseroles, cobblers, or stews with biscuit dough before putting them in the oven. Just flatten the dough out with your hand. If you have freeze-dried storable stews, adding freshly-made biscuit dough might improve it some.
Also according to Pilsbury, you can shape your biscuit dough into a cup shape (using a muffin pan).
Take a portion of the dough and pat or use a roller pin to make it flat. Place a slice of cheese on it. Put a hot dog on one end, then roll the whole thing up, with the ends of the hot dog sticking out. Cook until the biscuit dough is done. Pigs in a blanket!
Take a portion of dough and flatten it out. Put whatever you wish in the center...pizza ingredients, ham and cheese...whatever you want! Fold it up so that the ingredients stay locked inside while it cooks. Place it on the baking pan with the fold underneath. Cook until the biscuit outside is lightly browned. Can you guess what you just made? A hot pocket!
Try and think of what you could make with biscuit dough.
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