Hot Biscuits. In Full. At Last 6WS

About to make hot biscuits, no bread in the house, shock, horror, and it occurred to me finally, been meaning to do this for ages, to actually give the recipe.  Up to now I've been just saying, oh, look at Silver Palate, it's in there.  

Then I tried that myself, and realized that the little xerox copy I've been working off in my three ring binder, was indeed by the authors, one of them, anyway, but it didn't appear in the book, not the edition I have. Oh. Must have found it in a magazine, oops.

This counts as Giving Bad Advice.  So I will finally remedy it. Simple recipe, which I've adapted here and there.

Anyway, here's the doings, what posh cooks call the mise en place, and ironic ones call the mise en scene, provide your own grave accent there.

Around the clock, whose center is two cups of flour, in this case whole wheat, you see baking powder, one tablespoon, baking soda, half a teaspoon, kosher salt, half a teaspoon, golden raisins for this version, just shake them in as you like. That's all the dry ingredients.

Then come olive oil, five tablespoons (substitute for recipe three of canola oil, ew, and two of vanilla essence, ew again, but if you prefer that I won't judge, very much anyway) one cup of buttermilk (I make this by souring milk with lemon juice). 

I add all the wet ingredients in that container you see there holding the buttermilk, then add them into the flour mixture all at once.

The measuring tools are there, and the whisk is to mix the dry ingredients, instead of sifting, then the big antique Russian fork is for mixing the wet ingredients in, not too vigorously.  You don't have to have a big Russian antique fork, you can use a modern American one, or Canadian, or Kiwi, or whatever you're up for. 

At this point I add the inclusions, raisins, whatever else I feel like.  I've tried adding them to the dry ingredients and they always hung on to unbaked flour and didn't look pretty.  Added in to the wet dough, they get incorporated better.

Oven at 425F, for about 10 minutes, then take a look and see if another two minutes is needed, sometimes is.

I often make it as One Big Thing, on a nonstick dish, probably intended for pizza or something.  I slice it up with a pizza cutter.

And here's a piece of today's version, in action at the lunch table. Bit of  stretch to have a version with raisins in it at lunch, but fine by me. I also sometimes put crushed walnuts, or sunflower seeds, in.   If I'd used ap flour instead of whole wheat, it would look less sort of rustic.  I sometimes do a half and half mix.

So there it is, with apologies for not having realized this earlier, and hopes that you'll give it a try.  This is nice toasted for breakfast, or jammed for teatime.  All purpose handy quick bread.