Posted: 12/5/2025 10:12:32 PM EDT
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So I recently rendered a bunch of bear fat into grease. I have repeatedly been told that it makes great biscuits and pie crusts. Wife and I both tried to make some recipes we got online. Both came out powdery. Not flakey or soft. Like powder. What am I doing wrong? Recipe I used. |
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"powdery' leads one to guess your liquid, be it milk or butter milk is lacking in quantity or percentage of fat is less than needed. Couple of things......... put the biscuits on the baking pan allow them to rest for 10 minutes or so prior to egg washing the tops, and baking. |
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Originally Posted By trails-end: Buy a bag of White Lily Self Rising Flour and follow the directions on the bag. This. I use self rising White Lilly, buttermilk, and crisco. No recipe. Mix it by hand. |
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Never made biscuits with animal fat... With butter, you want the butter to be VERY COLD. You want chunks of butter in the biscuits as they bake. Key to fluffy delicious biscuits right there. We freeze the butter and then grate it with a cheese grater. Works great. |
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Originally Posted By eclark53520: Never made biscuits with animal fat... With butter, you want the butter to be VERY COLD. You want chunks of butter in the biscuits as they bake. Key to fluffy delicious biscuits right there. We freeze the butter and then grate it with a cheese grater. Works great. |
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Originally Posted By trails-end: Buy a bag of White Lily Self Rising Flour and follow the directions on the bag. This is the way... The prep is also key Hot oven 475, cold prep flour, all ingredients, baking pan and rolling pin Grate frozen unsalted butter, don't over mix, it needs little butter chunks. Butter milk optional, I use whole milk |
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I made a mistake buying some self rising flour from Walmart, their brand. It doesn’t make a great biscuit. Same as what the OP complained about,no flakey texture just a universal fine crumb that falls apart. Not enough pop to raise them much either. I wondered if I in fact underworked the dough. They say to work biscuit dough as little as possible so that’s what I did. I make fine biscuits with regular flour, milk or butter milk, combination of butter and crisco or butter and lard. Just not with this self rising crap. |
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Todays biscuits   Used a little bit too much butter milk. But I find if it is a little too wet it makes good biscuits. 4 cups flour white wings all purpose flour. Also great for tortillas nice soft flour One teaspoon sugar Two teaspoons salt One half teaspoon baking soda 3 tablespoons baking powder 8 tablespoons butter grated cold 2 cups butter milk 450 17 min The part I can’t tell you is what makes the difference |
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For the new biscuit bakers. There is a major difference between White Lilly and all most all other flowers. White Lilly is made from southern wheat which is a soft wheat grain flower grown only in the south. The others are made from hard wheat grain. That's why southern biscuits are so fluffy and lite. You MUST use White Lilly if you want to duplicate grandma's southern biscuits. White Lily flour comes from soft winter wheat, low in protein and gluten. When a liquid is introduced to glutenin and gliadin, the proteins in flour, they swell and develop elasticity that's enhanced when worked by hand or machine. Gluten development provides flour-based food with structure, which is beneficial for French baguettes, homemade pasta and the like. But biscuits are quick breads, ideally much softer than their well-kneaded cousins. Even with a gentle touch, biscuits made from all-purpose flour can emerge tough and dense. READ Here EBR |
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2 cups SRF 1 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup shortening Attached File Attached File Attached File |
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Originally Posted By 50-140: "powdery' leads one to guess your liquid, be it milk or butter milk is lacking in quantity or percentage of fat is less than needed. Couple of things......... put the biscuits on the baking pan allow them to rest for 10 minutes or so prior to egg washing the tops, and baking. Egg wash you say? Sacrilege! Heresy! Git a rope!  Only bacon grease goes on top and bottom of buttermilk biscuits. As someone already posted, if you're not using White Lily flour, you're doing it wrong. It really is shocking how much better it is than any regular or premium flour for biscuits. Flaky biscuits come from cans, but they should be light and fluffy otherwise if made right. Never tried subbing bear fat for lard, would be interesting to try. |