Originally posted February 25, 2013

Bacon Grease Biscuits

Bacon Grease Biscuits by LizDunn

I was at Dynamo Donuts, in San Francisco, and they had this quiche with a bacon grease crust. I thought that would be like, a nest of bacon or something, but it was just a pastry crust made with bacon grease instead of shortening. It was so delicious. And as a person living in San Francisco, of course I have the very special-ist bacon, where a guy in Iowa slaughters his own lovingly raised pigs, blah blah. It's really good, and expensive, and we always save the grease but we don't really do very much with it. SO! With the Dynamo crust fresh in my mind, I decided to make bacon grease biscuits!

Of course I found this on Paula Deen's website. If you click through on the link, you'll see the whole story of this lady Miss Laurie who made these all the time and they are supposed to be little, not big ol' biscuits, but I was surprised at HOW little and flat they are (and the picture accompanying the recipe on Paula's site has them looking much fluffier, so I did something wrong). They taste great, though, really good, so I'm posting the recipe anyways and maybe one of you will adapt it and figure out how to make them fluffier!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups pastry flour
  • 1 scant teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons chilled bacon grease
  • ½-to-2/3 cup whole milk
20 biscuits

Directions

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 450° F.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut in the bacon fat with a fork, until it resembles damp, coarse meal with occasional lumps no larger than very small peas.

Make a well in the center and pour in half a cup of milk. Mix with as few strokes as possible until the dough clumps together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk (if needed) by spoonfuls until it is no longer crumbly.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and pat out ½-inch thick. Fold it in half and pat out ½-inch thick, fold again, and repeat twice more.

Lightly flour the surface once more and roll or pat the dough out about ¼-inch thick. Using 1½-inch-diameter biscuit cutter dipped in flour before each cut, cut the dough straight down, without twisting the cutter, into rounds, transferring them to an ungreased baking sheet spaced about half an inch apart.

The scraps can be reworked with care: gather into a lump and lightly fold and pat flat about three times or until they just hold together, then pat flat and cut as above. Bake the biscuits until golden brown, about 10 minutes, and serve piping hot.

30 minutes

Comments

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  • commented almost 11 years ago

    I looked for the biscuit recipe made with bacon fat, because I wanted to send soup and biscuits to a sick friend, and discovered that we were out of butter. The recipe you created was incredibly helpful in giving me the courage to take the bacon fat risk. Here's what I did. They came out GREAT!!!

    3 c. flour
    1 TLB + 1 tsp Baking Powder
    1/2 tsp salt
    2/3rds c. bacon grease
    3/4 c. grated parmigiana cheese
    2/3rds cup onion dip

    I wanted to use up the dip. I reduced the salt based on the comment I read, that follows the recipe. I did make several 'rounds' out of the dough, and then cut them as I would scones -- little triangles. (I did not use a cookie cutter.) Baked at 375 convection (400 regular), for about 12 minutes. THANK YOU for pioneering this recipe.

  • commented about 11 years ago

    I might try either omitting or cutting by half the salt. Bacon is already salty, and these biscuits are salty but not TOO salty but as a person who doesn't need a ton of salt to enjoy things, I bet they'd be dandy without the added salt too.

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