Sourdough Drop Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a biscuit and a drop biscuit? ›

Drop biscuits have more milk or other liquid added to the dough than rolled biscuits. The dough is moister and cannot be kneaded or rolled; simply drop tablespoons of dough onto the baking sheet. Drop biscuits don't rise as much as other biscuits and they are always coarser in appearance and texture.

The benefits of using sourdough discard

Instead of the buttermilk offering that tang and tenderness, it is replaced with discard which uses the starters natural acidity. This is a great option if you don't have buttermilk on hand, but you have sourdough discard sitting around.

All you want to do is slather some butter and jelly on your steaming biscuit…but one sweep of the knife, and half your biscuit is crumbled in your lap. If this sounds familiar, you could be adding too much flour to your dough without knowing it, disrupting the ratio of dry to wet ingredients.

For super light, crumbly biscuits try grating or pushing the yolks of hard-boiled eggs through a sieve into the biscuit dough. This increases the fat content and slows down the development of gluten. Cookie recipes on the other hand are more likely to contain eggs. Adding moisture as well as binding the mixture.

A little bit more rustic than their rolled cousins, drop biscuits are made by 'dropping' a spoonful of moist dough onto a baking sheet, rather than rolling them out and shaping them carefully with a cutter. Drop biscuits contain more liquid than rolled ones and don't tend to rise as high as other biscuits.

Digestives, malted milks and Maryland cookies are among the least favoured biscuits. There's a resounding theme emerging here, and it's that these biscuits are plain AF, which is probably why they didn't hit it off with our impassioned biscuit munchers – all gaining just one vote each.

Yes, there are actually several health benefits to using sourdough discard in your cooking and baking. Sourdough discard is rich in probiotics, which can help promote a healthy gut microbiome and improve digestion.

Technically, sourdough discard has the same benefits as sourdough starter, since they are both wild yeast ferments. In terms of beneficial lactic acid bacteria, natural yeasts acetic acid and colonies of microbes, they are both full of them.

The acidity of the sourdough discard helps prevent tough gluten strands from forming. This results in tender and moist baked goods! When discard is coupled with a long ferment, it can aid in digestion and help the nutrients to be more bioavailable to our bodies.

Why are my biscuits not light and fluffy? ›

The biscuit mix itself is a simple combination of all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. For light and fluffy biscuits, steer clear of any flour made from 100% hard red wheat; this style is relatively low in starch and high in protein, readily forming gluten in a high-moisture dough.

Fat aside, a common solution to crumbly biscuits is to cut back on the measured amount of dry ingredients. According to Quaker, you should be scooping flour gently with a spoon instead of sticking your measuring cup directly into the bag, which can lead to compacted mis-measurements.

In the presence of a liquid, the acidity of the cream of tartar activates the baking soda, causing it to start bubbling away, and that, in turn, is what makes the biscuits rise.

If there isn't enough egg, your batter or dough may not be able to hold its structure or could end up overly dry or dense. On the other hand, if there is too much egg, your baked goods could lose their shape due to excess liquid, or have a rubbery (or even overly cakey) texture depending on the recipe.

So, if you use four extra-large eggs instead of four large eggs, you will add too much egg to a batter, which could result in a product that tastes eggy and is spongy and dense.

Drop biscuits get their name from how they are formed: By spooning the dough and "dropping" it onto the cooking surface, whether it be a baking sheet or straight onto a chicken pot pie. When baked on their own, they take less than 20 minutes in the oven.

a biscuit made by dropping baking powder biscuit dough from a spoon onto a pan for baking.

The softer dough for drop biscuits means that if you tried to put them close together, they'd tend to run into each other to form one big biscuit. Another choice to consider is the texture you like your biscuits. With rolled dough you can fold it in thirds like a letter for a laminated dough, and get a flaky texture.

While many bowhunters who only use drop-away rests tout their products' superior speed and accuracy, field tests have indicated the difference between Whisker Biscuits and drop-aways is minimal to negligible for most hunting scenarios, losing just a few feet per second and about an inch of drop at longer distances.