Biscuits: Sweet and Savory Southern Recipes for the All-American Kitchen

by Jackie Garvin

From the kitchens of our grandmothers to present-day biscuit-only shops, this sweet and savory food has come a long way in American culture.More than four hundred years ago, explorers of the New World carried a biscuit known as hardtack on their voyages. Hardtack was made from flour, water, and sometimes salt and was sturdy and long lasting, making it suitable for hard, treacherous journeys. The composition and texture of the hardtack biscuit changed at the hands of the Jamestown settlers, who had access to three necessary ingredients that would transform the difficult-to-bite and bland tasting hardtack into a soft, delicious soft winter wheat, fat in the form of lard from pigs, and milk or buttermilk from cows.Today’s version of biscuits barely resembles its predecessor. Our preference is for soft, billowy, flaky, and delicious biscuits that can be eaten alone, used as a vehicle for fillings and toppings, or incorporated as an ingredient in a recipe. While biscuits are wildly popular in our culture, they are known to intimidate home cooks. Jackie Garvin overcame her decades long biscuit-making failures by research and trial and error and has emerged to write a cookbook that simplifies and demystifies biscuit baking and highlights the prevalence of biscuits throughout the United States.Rich in Southern history, as well as touching family memories, Biscuits presents a collection of more than seventy recipes including raspberry biscuit pudding with vanilla ice cream sauce, ham biscuits with honey mustard butter, loaded baked potato biscuits, and spicy pimento cheese bites. Also included are recipes for multiple gravies, toppings, and biscuit “neighbors” such as peach raspberry scones, chocolate toffee monkey bread, hush puppies, and chicken ’n’ dumplings.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Good Books and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of cookbooks, including books on juicing, grilling, baking, frying, home brewing and winemaking, slow cookers, and cast iron cooking. We’ve been successful with books on gluten-free cooking, vegetarian and vegan cooking, paleo, raw foods, and more. Our list includes French cooking, Swedish cooking, Austrian and German cooking, Cajun cooking, as well as books on jerky, canning and preserving, peanut butter, meatballs, oil and vinegar, bone broth, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction

284 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2015

Reviews

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eating biscuits used to be a rural or Southern thing in the past before the advent of the commercial pop-tubes as well as being made by hand. Biscuits by Jackie Gavin gives recipes and directions for homemade biscuits in many shapes and forms with simple directions and numerous pictures. Other recipes for other uses such as biscuits and gravy are include. This collection is a must for lovers of comfort food.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biscuits are one of my favorite things on all of God's green earth so this book practically leapt out at me when I walked into the Mount Vernon gift shop a few weeks ago. Forget buying a t-shirt or magnet to remind me of George Washington's Virginia plantation - this cookbook would be the perfect souvenir. I've been practicing and perfecting my biscuit-making techniques for a few years now so I really enjoyed leafing through this book to get new ideas as to what I can do better. Tonight I tried one of her recipes and the results were fantastic; my test subjects had nothing but praise for the golden mounds of goodness hot from the oven. This one's a winner!

[Jocelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biscuits looked so good!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew you could write a whole book about biscuits and have it actually be interesting? The book tells about this history of biscuits, both in America and in her family; gives tips on the best ingredients to use (soft winter wheat flour) and buttermilk; and shares recipes for everything from traditional buttermilk biscuits, angel biscuits, and drop biscuits to the more exotic mashed potato biscuits, bacon cathead biscuits and yogurt biscuit bread - to name but a few. And if that wasn't enough to pique your interest, you can use your leftover biscuits to make raspberry biscuit pudding, or make biscuit doughnuts or resurrection biscuits! But the book doesn't just provide biscuit recipes, it gives you recipes for how to use them (salmon patties on dill biscuits or chicken and dumplings). I find a nice feature to be that not all the recipes use scratch biscuit dough, some actually use canned biscuits, so there is something for everyone! And speaking of something for everyone, the final chapter is on biscuit neighbors and kin - hushpuppies, scones, cobbler and the like. A very enjoyable book that combines both recipes with the stories of the people who made them.
2019 PSC - A book with SALTY, SWEET, BITTER, or SPICY in the title

[deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid cookbook whose best recipes are the basic biscuit ones right at the start. Both the Buttermilk Biscuits and the Baking Soda Biscuits turned out super well for me, and I'm adding the recipes to my personal collection! If you want to take just a little something from this book, I'd recommend reading Garvin's brief opening about biscuit history and then trying these two recipes.
I think some of the other flavored biscuits weren't as strong; for example, the garlic cheddar biscuits were made twice but neither round produced very tasty results. Also, I was a little disappointed to find a surprising amount of the recipes just said to use pre-made canned biscuits?? There was a recipe for monkey bread (which is a personal favorite of mine) that I would have love to made from scratch but skipped because I didn't want to use canned biscuits.
But again, the basic recipes were just so good, and Garvin gave very helpful technical advice, so someone like me who had never really attempted homemade Southern biscuits really benefited from it. :)

[Jan Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent recipes. Detailed instructions.

[Diane Kuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biscuit heaven!

I would never imagined so many ways to do biscuits! I have already used several of the recipes!
Delicious in so many ways.

[raccoon reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie is delightful to read. Full of Alabama memories and delicious looking recipes. I can't wait to try some of these!

[Sheila Lawry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this cookbook. I am a biscuit lover not too proficient at making them so this will help me thanks for doing this book love it.

Absolutely loved this book . The recipes are easy to follow and sound yummy. I did not grow up in the south I was introduced to biscuits at my cousins house she cooked biscuits all the time got her recipe from her mother in law.

[Linda]

I enjoyed reading the comments and stories before each recipe. Which one to make first. I would think I had one all picked out to try the next day and would turn pages and find another. The recipes are written to be understood and followed. Charts in the back of the book to help you adjust to your circumstances. I think I now have one selected for today.