Wednesday, October 8, 2008

TUESDAYS WITH DORIE (In [dis]spirit, for dinner last night) -- Basic Biscuits

Last night, I made Dorie's Basic Biscuits for about the seven millionth time. That may be a slight exaggeration. I believe I have actually made them seven million and one times.

I made them again because Katie and Kayte opined at Moms' Night Out last Monday that maybe my biscuit cutter was to blame: apparently, a dull-edged biscuit cutter can effectively seal the biscuits and keep them from rising, or they can be sealed by the baker's twisting of the cutter.

My biscuit cutter is just about as old as I am. Which....*ahem*....means that it is in the prime of its life, although maybe not quite as sharp as it used to be and if that's not a metaphor for middle age, I don't know what is.

Intrepid is my middle name. I mean, THERE ARE CRUSADERS WHO SEARCHED FOR THE HOLY GRAIL who weren't as dedicated as I have been to these dumb biscuits. So I went to Meijer and looked high and low for a biscuit cutter (Holy Grail reference again) and couldn't find one. What? Why can I not find a biscuit cutter in the kitchen implements section of a store like Meijer that is so large, one can perceive the curvature of the earth when looking down the middle aisle?

Anyway, I ended up going to the cake baking section and buying a round cookie cutter for $3.99, cussing under my breath just a little bit. It's much bigger than my old cutter, being a three-inch diameter instead of a two-inch diameter, but what are you gonna do? I wasn't aware that I was going to have to search the Yellow Pages for a tinsmith so that I could make Dorie's biscuits for the seven million and first time.

I took the new cutter home, washed and dried it, and then assembled my Basic Biscuit ingredients. I cut them out, noting that the round cookie cutter did slice very cleanly through the dough. Then I baked them and loitered around the oven door, wringing my hands and biting my lip, hoping against hope that the biscuits would rise.

They didn't. I served my family three-inch diameter crackers and I AM DONE WITH DORIE'S BASIC FREAKIN' BISCUITS.

1 comment:

Kayte said...

Okay, I will try to get to these biscuits as soon as I can to see if I can figure it out for you...you did checking your rising agent, correct? That it was new and fresh and all of that? I will continue the quest for you. It's not like Dorie to have a bad recipe in there, but perhaps there was a misprint.

I think you should write to Dorie...you can click on her site on the TWD blogroll and then send her an email and she really does answer a lot of them...good luck...let us know what she says.