Biscuits - Drop, Oil

This blog is really for EASY cooking - not fancy, but stuff Ryu gives the "umai" (delicious) vote to. These biscuits fit that role. I am not a biscuit maker. If you have read any of my other posts, you will perhaps remember that I do not like to cut shortening or butter into flour. I have a pastry cutter and CAN do it if necessary, but will go to great lengths NOT to do so. Also, big old cans of Crisco are not available to me and butter is too spendy for daily consumption. However, a student received many many bottles of oil for a mid-summer gift. She and her husband are not great oil consumers, so she gave me a bunch of them. I don't use oil in much of my regular cooking, but...free is FREE!

Then, I found this recipe for biscuits - using oil. And they are sufficient if you like drop biscuits. If you are dead set on cut out ones, don't try this recipe - though the original recipe says you can roll the dough out between pieces of wax paper - why try to do the impossible???

As this recipe is not the same as the one Betty Crocker has on her web site, I'll post it all here:

Baking Powder Biscuits - Drop, Oil

1 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup oil

Heat oven to 450F or 230C. Mix dry ingredients together. Combine milk and oil and dump into the dry ingredients. Mix with a fork until all is moist. Avoid over-mixing. Using a spoon, drop the batter into a greased cookie sheet (I never grease mine.) Bake until golden brown. 10-12 minutes (cooking time depends on the size of your biscuits - so check on them.)

Source: Betty Crocker's Cookbook, New and Revised Edition, Copyright 1978. Baking Powder Biscuits page 194

In the original recipe, the oil is shortening and is cut into the flour mixture.