Friday, February 8, 2013

Barleycorn Biscuits




These biscuits are sublime. They have the sort of nutty flavor of the barley flour and they also have a bit of crunch from the cornmeal. For the cornmeal, I used a version of polenta which wasn't finely ground. I love the texture it gave to the biscuits.

You're supposed to pat out the dough and cut your biscuits into circles, but since the dough was so wet, I just did drop biscuits.

The recipe is from the King Arthur Whole Grains Baking Book.

Barleycorn Biscuits

3/4 cup barley flour
1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole yellow cornmeal
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup buttermilk
Melted butter or milk for brushing the tops (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400f. Lightly grease a baking sheet, or line it with parchment paper. 
 
Whisk together the flours, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. With a fork, two knives, a pastry cutter, or a food processor, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 
 
Whisk together the egg and buttermilk in a small bowl or large measuring cup. Add, all at once, to the flour mixture, and blend lightly and quickly with a fork until the mixture is evenly moistened. 
 
Turn the dough out onto at floured work surface, and using a bench knife or dough scraper, fold the dough over on itself three or four times until it comes together. 
 
Pat the dough out until it's 3/4 inch thick. Cut the dough into squares or rounds with a 2 inch biscuit cutter and transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet. Stack the scraps on top of each other, fold them as you did for the original dough, and pat out and cut again. Brush the tops with melted butter or milk for a more pronounced golden color, if desired.

Bake until the tops are golden brown, 20-23 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

Michele

1 comment:

  1. Yum! I haven't tried barley flour, but I think I'd like it.

    ReplyDelete