I have to admit, hearing Husker Du mentioned really made me view Glen and Jules in a whole new light. 80's skater punk Glenn with a flannel tied around his waist. Respect!
I grew up eating Southern cooking. We had both Beaten biscuits and regular biscuits. Beaten biscuits were usually eaten with country ham sandwiched in them almost exclusively. They were cut thin to create almost a thick cracker quality.
This was very interesting and educational. My grandmother was born in 1925 on a farm in north GA. They still were using horse and wagon to go to town. The recipe and method she taught me for making biscuits is a cross between what you did here and the modern buttermilk version. She made hers with buttermilk, lard & butter, self rising flour, and then she rolled and beat the crap out of the dough. She didn't do it for as long as you did, only for around 5 min, but the result was a different biscuit from others. She also told me that if I didn't have self rising flour, to use all purpose flour and just roll it more. Now I know where some of her methodology came from.
Just thought you'd be interested to know, these were often eaten like a little sandwich with ham. And there was an invention that made them easier to make. It was a roller (imagine something like the devices that roll pasta dough) that you put the dough through, then fold it up and put it through again. You do that however many times you need to get the right texture, instead of beating the mess out of them.
Thank you. I am in Central Kentucky. I still make Beaten Biscuits for Christmas and Easter. Served for breakfast or late night snack with Country Ham on it. I still have my great grandmother's "Prick". It is a... kind of stamp handle that has a P made from small round metal points. When you prick the biscuit, it prints a P on it, for Peavler, their last name. I also have the hammer, rusty piece of iron with a short handle, used to beat the dough, only thing it is used for. By the way, there should be NO color on the biscuits. God Bless and stay safe.
Beaten biscuits are a classic Virginia recipe, and they are fantastic with thinly sliced Virginia ham. The easiest way to make them is to sit on the porch and beat the dough with a hammer while socializing with a few neighbors. Some people pass the dough through a pasta roller on the highest setting, folding and rolling dozens of times. The goal is to work the gluten to the greatest extent possible, but ideally, the flour should be a soft Southern flour. I love seeing this video, but I have one little quibble, which is that the dough should have been rolled much thinner. The end result is like a thick cracker.
Looks like a version of what we called soft tack. My grandma reserved the recipe for when she was angry about something. (Amazingly therapeutic to bash on something for twenty minutes and then bake it.)
Glen, this is a variation on the Maryland Beaten Biscuit. The only other place they are still made besides Maryland is in Kentucky due to Maryland settlers moving to Kentucky in the late 18th century. Even in Maryland, there are only a handful of places where you can get beaten biscuits made commercially. Because of the labor, it is mostly a family tradition with some families using hatchet handles or even hammers to beat the dough. The Maryland Beaten Biscuit is a cousin of the Dorset Knob, which is also a rare item in Britain.
Thank You So Much!! I knew if it was called a "biscuit" it had to come from you-know-where, and this seems to be our missing link. Their biscuit today has a bit of sugar added; I don't know when they gave up the beating, but it seems the term "biscuit" refers to a high fat dough that is rolled out and cut and pricked before baking. Ta Da!! 😀😘
My grandmother used to make those biscuits every morning. I did not know the history and had thought the recipe was lost to history. I recall her painting a bit of bacon grease on top of each one and putting it briefly under the broiler to brown the tops. Goes well with gravy on top.
The most classic biscuit to use for the ubiquitous ham biscuits served at gatherings. Buttermilk biscuits are now used in most places, and sometimes even soft rolls.
I truly do appreciate the amount of time and effort that Glen has devoted to these bits of information, that most would not know, nor even go to seek out. Thank you for your time and efforts to share these tidbits in culinary history! Glad to know there are people like you who share their passion in a simple to digest format. Hopefully more see your content!
I can think of a couple of PEOPLE I wouldn’t mind beating with a rolling pin for 15-20 minutes. Biscuit dough, not so much. Thanks for the history lesson, Glen!
@@lenalyles2712 I've only seen the shallow rectangular cans with the pull tops around here - Mid-South U.S.. I did search online to see what options were available. It's always interesting to see how things I grew up with are or aren't treated in other parts of the world. For instance, I'd never seen passata before I watched Glen's channel. We have canned crushed, whole or diced tomatoes. I checked online and it was only available for shipping and one store wanted $25 for 3 bottles.
I’ve seen sardines in round cans in a major grocery store chain here in Toronto. They are usually packed in the Pacific region - that is, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. It’s the North Atlantic sardines that are flat packed, and more generally available in North America, and perhaps Europe.
@@ic_trab so it's something not readily available where I live. Crushed tomatoes seemed to be the closest I could get at my local supermarket. I would have to drive over 20 miles to more upscale markets.
A while ago, I offered a criticism, well-intentioned, but was wrongly-based upon what I then thought was too many older recipes among excellent current ones. I was Wrong. I also then just didn’t know you also did historical recipes. This post is so well-done and a lot of fun. Thank you.
Oh the memories, watching y' eaten them. I'm ahh smiling. Thank you, for sharing this process I witnessed as a child. My great grandmother used to make them. And when you stated something about beating for 15 minutes....🤣🤣🤣🤣My short great grandmother told me that's because she was taking all her frustrations with grandpa out on the dough. It saves his life everyday😂
These look a lot like what my grandmother made, but I was never up early enough to know if she beat them. I do know she baked them in a round cake or pie pan. She made extra while we were visiting and a plate of biscuits, platter of sausage and country ham, and a jar of her strawberry jam stayed on the table all day. And while I was never a big eater as a kid I took full advantage of the spread!
You just helped explain something that always seemed strange to me. My grandfather, born in 1868 in rural North Carolina, preferred unleavened bread. His mother would have learned cooking from her mother in the pre-leavening days.
The beating with a pin is a way to hydrate the flour without developing a lot of gluten. It would also help prevent the butter from melting from your hands like regular kneading would do. I wonder if 10 minutes in the mixer with a paddle attachment would accomplish the same thing.
Pin beating also spreads the butter out flat. If you flatten biscuit dough and divide and stack it, rather than gathering it, you get many flaky layers. A bit like rough puff pastry. Paddle beating wouldn’t have this kind of flattening/layering effect.
@@AdventuresWithUnkadee Oh, I don't know - my 1962 KitchenAid mixer has been making bread and cakes for sixty years. Yes, every ten years or so I have it serviced and the sacrificial gear failed a few years back - Whirlpool had designed the new ones to fail. Found a commercial source for Hobart, problem solved. I absolutely would not try it with the new piece of trash KitchenAid ProLine my grandkids gave me for my birthday. Such a lovely color, such a piece of plastic trash inside. Of course, this is one of those discussions which never gets resolved.
These are beaten biscuits. I read that they are beaten/mixed so much that the gluten breaks. Putting the dough through a food grinder 4x apparently replicates the beating.
What I love about Glen is he's willing to give almost anything a try...then taste it in front of a captured audience whether it is a pass or fail!!! God Bless you, Glen, you are a troop-ah!!!!
So we call them beaten biscuit. My dad made a board with a fluted roller on it that allows you to roll it back and forth until the dough blisters. I never timed it! We follow same prick with fork etc and we always brush with butter and serve with ham inside. Love them!
My mom was born in east Tennessee on the Kentucky border. This was her biscuit. My fathers father (not from Tennessee) said they went straight to his feet.
The fact that all of us are here to really enjoy the content, and not just say “FIRST” really says a lot of the viewership, and the content. It’s Sunday, and it’s OCS time!
I always enjoy the video, regardless of what is made. It's an added bit of fun to try and be the first person to watch the video. I always just type first, if I am, and watch the video with a smile on my face, then I flesh out the comment after completing it.
As you were beating out the dough, and commenting on the texture change, I thought of Asian beaten rice dishes like mochi. Seems to have similar concepts.
Nice! I grew up in Kentucky where beaten biscuits and country ham was served on/during the winter holidays. Thanks for the history lesson. I had no idea about their origins. One thing, the biscuits should be smaller in diameter (no bigger than a Ritz Cracker) and about half as thick. This winter I’m making these for my family. Cheers
My wife (raised New Jersey) tells a story when she asked her late husband's mother in Tennessee how to make southern biscuits. She was directed to take the "canned biscuits out of the refrigerator"
I remember my great aunt in Kentucky making beaten biscuits. We ate them with Kentucky ham and, if I remember correctly, she sold them as a side business.
Don't know why the TH-cam algorithm sent me here but I'm glad it did. It starts to explain the biscuit vs. cookie debate with our friends from the UK. Thank you for sharing.
I love this channel. I love that Glenn is a sort of a punk and goes to see Rage Against the Machine. I love the old cook book show, I always learn something new.
In old days, before Natron or baking powder, and also today, in Germany, we use Hirschhornsalz, (Baker's Amonia) Ammonium Carbonate to make Spekulatius (Wikipedia has no english translation. In french Spéculoos) or similar products.
The English is “Spekulatius”… (!) I have an ancient German cookbook (in Githic script) that calls for Hirschhornsalz (for one of the Christmas biscuits) and have to substitute baking powder (the real deal being a little difficult to obtain).
I'm really glad you showcased this historical transition in preparation. Having only ever eaten leavened biscuits I always wondered why things like Dog Biscuits and Pilot Biscuits carried the name and this resolves it for me.
In the UK, the name ‘biscuits’ stayed as the hard variety. Certainly explains the divergence… Even the name ‘biscuit’ is from the Latin bis coctum, meaning ‘twice baked’ - like hardtack (what we call ship’s biscuits) or in Italian biscotti, where you bake them twice to drive out the moisture. Apparently the modern American meaning is only recorded from 1818 - perhaps as the practice of leavening them with buttermilk started to become popular?
For some reason, I thought that was hilarious watching you beating that biscuit dough with the rolling pin. No wonder all the old movies and cartoons had a woman chasing someone or something with a rollin pin. Keep up the great content. Really enjoy watching your shows and implement a lot of recipes you make.
So half of my dad's family came up from Kentucky in the early 1900s. He made biscuits like this! So he didn't use a rolling pin to smack it, he used his hand. They're really good for soaking in gravy!
There was a chemical leavening agent from the 1700s called pearl ash but I don't know if it was readily available at the time these cookbooks were written.
Pearlash and Hartshorn, etc were known and used, but not very extensively and not really by home cooks in North America. I can only find one or two instances of it being called for in my collection of home cookbooks.
I can't wait to give this a try! My grandmother used to make a biscuit that she called a ' thick cake'. I've never been able to find a recipe that looked close to what she made. This may be it! She used to split it, butter it, and drizzle it with maple syrup. Thanks so much for your channel!
I have been watching since the start of the Pandemic and I am hooked on the things you cook. I'm also a fellow Canadian who lives in Ottawa and. Can't wait to see more videos Glen
That’s when I started and Glen is one of my absolute favorites. My guess is that COVID made the careers of many TH-camrs because so many of us started watching when we were stuck at home (except for the essential workers who were stuck exposing themselves to an illness with no viable treatment at the time).
There's an old historic stream powered mill near me and down the street from it was a place called maryland beaten biscuits. It started in the 20s and i think used the mills flour. It closed in 2013. I havnt tried them in years but as a kid I remember them being the toughest chewiest things ever. I've heard family members of the original company have started making them again and selling them at the local farmers market.
@@TamarLitvot the original factory was in wye mills. The farmers market that they sometimes show up at is in centreville(and I'm sure in other close towns)
the tool of choice for beaten biscuits among my Maryland elders was an ax handle. My Missouri grandmother made the best baking powder and lard biscuits by feel, no measurements.
First... Now I know what happens to a biscuit if baking soda/powder is omitted. I think I will skip making these. Thank you so much for doing the video. Happy Sunday.
I lived outside of Baltimore in the 1980's and remember people who lived there all their life, explaining beaten biscuits to me. Never saw one in a restaurant though!
My mother and I were talking last night and Mom was telling me how stupid one of her friends is because the friend always calls a recipe a receipt. Mom didn't belive me when I told her the word receipt was antiquated but a perfectly fine word to use for a recipe because it had been in use prior to the word recipe becoming standard. Mom and I then had a good time researching the use of the words receipt and recipe. I believe that I'd initially looked up the use of the word receipt after having seen it mentioned by you or I saw it in a book page closeup on your channel. Thank you for having posted content that allowed me to have a nice conversation with my mom and for it making it possible for me to convince my mother not to consider her friend to be an idiot based on her use of the word receipt instead of recipe alone. My mother is 89 years old, set in her ways and quite opinionated. We talk about food quite a bit. At 89 the foods she eats are often the highlight of her day.
Oh, I loved this video. Way back when Cuisinart processors were pretty new and Cuisinart had a Pleasures with Cooking magazine, I remember they had an article about Beaten Biscuits and how it was possible to make them with this new gadget. First of all I found the whole concept of the beaten biscuit new and a bit odd--beating it with a rolling pin? I tried it. The Cuisinart version. That's all I remember. LOL. I guess it wasn't very impressive or I didn't do it well. Anyway, I remember trying it and can't even remember how it tastes. This was a fun video to watch, though, and brought that memory right back.
I remember as a kid getting what other comments here are calling a Maryland beaten biscuit (we lived in Delaware) -- he rolls them out and cuts them into disks in the video, but the beaten biscuits I remember were about the size, shape, consistency, and flavor profile of a golf ball, and I loved 'em. It could take the better part of a day to finish chewing one.
This video reminds me of how certain regional curries only use green peppercorns for their heat.. Much as all spicy curries were made in south and southeast asia before the introduction of the chili. There is still one somewhat famous fish curry in Cambodia that doesnt use anything new world in it's ingredients, no tomatoes either. I always wanted to try it as i've heard it's still quite good.
Biscuits - who doesn't like a biscuit ♥ maybe not the 20 minute beating kind though 😂Looking forward to that surprise baked casserole for next Sunday. Have a good week!
Everytime my mother would get mad at my dad, she would rage clean. I inherited this gene. And I think having hubby watch me make these biscuits would be way more effective. If I'm really mad, I could maintain eye contact the whole time.
I'll confess that I giggled out loud when Jules mentioned hardtack because that's what I muttered to myself when you were pricking the dough--"I bet it's more like hardtack."
I lived in Virginia and was told about "heated biscuits". There was a restaurant in the Chesapeake area who employed elderly ladies to beat the dough with hammers. That was a hoot.
I had always heard that the etymology of the American term "biscuit" was that it came from ship's biscuit (i.e. hardtack). And I never understood how something like that could end up giving a name to the light fluffy biscuits that I'm used to. This as an intermediate form makes that make more sense. (I also no longer feel as much of the "I should make beaten biscuits someday" that I got when I first saw the recipe in the Joy of Cooking.
Hey Glen, I'm wondering if this recipe would be better if you used soft winter wheat for your flour, if you didn't use that. The big brand in the South is White Lily, and it gives the biscuits a very different texture; much softer and more moist. White Lily is usually sold as self-rising, but there is an All Purpose version. The switch to soft flour might give your final product a less tough texture, and might be more historically accurate to the flour that would have been used, although I'm not 100% sure on that
Interesting - but none of the famous Southern flour brands for making biscuits appear until the late 1890s (after these recipes). They come about after improvements in milling the flour to a fine consistency, and improved breeding of softer varieties of wheat.
I'm from Kentucky! We make great biscuits because they go great with CoIoneI Sander's Chicken, PIus a FYI. Southern wheat fIour is softer then northern wheat fIour. That's why they have great biscuits in the south. My mother use to import Northern FIour for her regular European bake goods or breads.
Yrs ago at a civil war reenactment, I remember them talking about using corn cob ash to replace bicarbonate of soda during the war for use in bread. Could this have worked for biscuits too?
Yes - chemical leavening agents were known prior to commercial availability. However when you look through the actual cookbooks; they (Pearlash, Hartshorn, etc) just weren't used by the home cook. The American Civil War happened after people got a taste of what Baking Soda / Baking Powder could do - so the 'trouble' to make a substitute would be worth it.
Hi Glen.. enjoy your channel... this episode brought to mind a cookie recipe I found years ago from someone with a Scandinavian heritage .. it was passed down from from her grandmother from the old country. It used Hartshorn as a leavening agent that was pre-baking powder and has been used for 300 to 400 years. I checked it out om Wikipedia from which I provide the following quote: "Hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate), also known simply as hartshorn, and baker's ammonia, was used as a leavening agent, in the baking of cookies and other edible treats. It was used mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a forerunner of baking powder.[7] A half-teaspoon of hartshorn can substitute for one teaspoon of baking powder. It is called for in old German and Scandinavian recipes and, although rarely used in modern times, may still be purchased as a baking ingredient." An interesting historical note for you. As a side issue mentioned on Wiki, if used with some ingredients can produce a carcinogen ... once again a Wiki quote: "Ammonia released during the baking process reacts with glucose and fructose to form intermediate molecules that in turn, react with asparagine (an amino acid found in nuts, seeds, and whole grains) to form acrylamide, a carcinogen." Best wishes from your neighbor to the south...
Glen: Having done such a nice unleavened biscuit today, If you have old cook books from Canadian and American Ashkenazi or Sephardic communities, is there any chance you’d do other kosher recipes in the future? Respectfully, W.S.
I always wondered about that because other than sourdough you know they didnt all have baking powder and baking soda for their cakes breads and etc. Thanks
I found it interesting that the instructions say to prick with a fork. That is commonly used to prevent puffing or layers separating. So they didn't want them to puff up and create layers like in a puff paste? Seems that would put them closer to a risen biscuit?
My Mamaw, in Tennessee in the Appalachian south (just south of Kentucky!), used to make these every now and then. When you said "that was highly therapeutic" after beating them, I realized she only made them when she was mad at Papaw, and that's probably the exact reason 😂
My mom (from rural and poor Saskatchewan) called biscuits what we now call crackers. If you had rolled them really thin then pricked them with a fork, you would probably have a "cracker".
I'm still getting used to my new glasses, so at the beginning I glanced at the page in the recipe book as saw "English Patient". I thought, easy recipe to make just throw whatever into a bowl then leave it in the oven for 6 to 8 hours. Too dark? Sorry, I've been on stress leave for a week. This episode gives a hunger for biscuits and gravy, though. The best biscuits and gravy can only be found in a truck stop in the South. Bucket list item. My first time was in New Mexico. Unforgettable.
Not gonna lie: Part of me really wishes for a super-cut of 20min of Glen just treating that dough like it owes him money while Husker Du plays.
🤣
Just sounds wrong to hear Glen say he went out to the garage to beat it to Husker Du for 20 minutes.
IKR?
@@microtasker 🤣
I have to admit, hearing Husker Du mentioned really made me view Glen and Jules in a whole new light. 80's skater punk Glenn with a flannel tied around his waist. Respect!
I grew up eating Southern cooking. We had both Beaten biscuits and regular biscuits. Beaten biscuits were usually eaten with country ham sandwiched in them almost exclusively. They were cut thin to create almost a thick cracker quality.
This was very interesting and educational. My grandmother was born in 1925 on a farm in north GA. They still were using horse and wagon to go to town. The recipe and method she taught me for making biscuits is a cross between what you did here and the modern buttermilk version. She made hers with buttermilk, lard & butter, self rising flour, and then she rolled and beat the crap out of the dough. She didn't do it for as long as you did, only for around 5 min, but the result was a different biscuit from others. She also told me that if I didn't have self rising flour, to use all purpose flour and just roll it more. Now I know where some of her methodology came from.
Just thought you'd be interested to know, these were often eaten like a little sandwich with ham. And there was an invention that made them easier to make. It was a roller (imagine something like the devices that roll pasta dough) that you put the dough through, then fold it up and put it through again. You do that however many times you need to get the right texture, instead of beating the mess out of them.
Thank you. I am in Central Kentucky. I still make Beaten Biscuits for Christmas and Easter. Served for breakfast or late night snack with Country Ham on it. I still have my great grandmother's "Prick". It is a... kind of stamp handle that has a P made from small round metal points. When you prick the biscuit, it prints a P on it, for Peavler, their last name. I also have the hammer, rusty piece of iron with a short handle, used to beat the dough, only thing it is used for. By the way, there should be NO color on the biscuits. God Bless and stay safe.
Beaten biscuits are a classic Virginia recipe, and they are fantastic with thinly sliced Virginia ham. The easiest way to make them is to sit on the porch and beat the dough with a hammer while socializing with a few neighbors. Some people pass the dough through a pasta roller on the highest setting, folding and rolling dozens of times. The goal is to work the gluten to the greatest extent possible, but ideally, the flour should be a soft Southern flour. I love seeing this video, but I have one little quibble, which is that the dough should have been rolled much thinner. The end result is like a thick cracker.
Looks like a version of what we called soft tack. My grandma reserved the recipe for when she was angry about something. (Amazingly therapeutic to bash on something for twenty minutes and then bake it.)
Glen, this is a variation on the Maryland Beaten Biscuit. The only other place they are still made besides Maryland is in Kentucky due to Maryland settlers moving to Kentucky in the late 18th century. Even in Maryland, there are only a handful of places where you can get beaten biscuits made commercially. Because of the labor, it is mostly a family tradition with some families using hatchet handles or even hammers to beat the dough. The Maryland Beaten Biscuit is a cousin of the Dorset Knob, which is also a rare item in Britain.
🤯
That's cultural appropriation, ya yankee.
@@cletushatfield8817 It's cultural _appreciation._ For beating things with a hatchet handle.
@@cam4636 Go back far enough in time, and all the food we eat was most definitely appropriated from somewhere and some culture
Thank You So Much!! I knew if it was called a "biscuit" it had to come from you-know-where, and this seems to be our missing link. Their biscuit today has a bit of sugar added; I don't know when they gave up the beating, but it seems the term "biscuit" refers to a high fat dough that is rolled out and cut and pricked before baking. Ta Da!! 😀😘
My grandmother used to make those biscuits every morning. I did not know the history and had thought the recipe was lost to history. I recall her painting a bit of bacon grease on top of each one and putting it briefly under the broiler to brown the tops. Goes well with gravy on top.
The most classic biscuit to use for the ubiquitous ham biscuits served at gatherings. Buttermilk biscuits are now used in most places, and sometimes even soft rolls.
That was an interesting way to make layers. Puff pastry with an attitude!
I truly do appreciate the amount of time and effort that Glen has devoted to these bits of information, that most would not know, nor even go to seek out. Thank you for your time and efforts to share these tidbits in culinary history! Glad to know there are people like you who share their passion in a simple to digest format. Hopefully more see your content!
Yes we are blessed to have access to his channel.
I can think of a couple of PEOPLE I wouldn’t mind beating with a rolling pin for 15-20 minutes. Biscuit dough, not so much. Thanks for the history lesson, Glen!
I used to be a volunteer guide at a plantation house, and when they had fundraisers, they made and served these with the country ham from the farm.
I really do enjoy the historical aspect of Sunday mornings, but my biggest takeaway here is sardines came in round cans?! 😄
When I lived in Germany I could get them in round cans and jars.
@@lenalyles2712 I've only seen the shallow rectangular cans with the pull tops around here - Mid-South U.S..
I did search online to see what options were available. It's always interesting to see how things I grew up with are or aren't treated in other parts of the world. For instance, I'd never seen passata before I watched Glen's channel. We have canned crushed, whole or diced tomatoes. I checked online and it was only available for shipping and one store wanted $25 for 3 bottles.
I’ve seen sardines in round cans in a major grocery store chain here in Toronto. They are usually packed in the Pacific region - that is, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. It’s the North Atlantic sardines that are flat packed, and more generally available in North America, and perhaps Europe.
@@SuHu62 Passata is basically pureed tomato, not really crushed. Very common here in Australia.
@@ic_trab so it's something not readily available where I live. Crushed tomatoes seemed to be the closest I could get at my local supermarket. I would have to drive over 20 miles to more upscale markets.
A while ago, I offered a criticism, well-intentioned, but was wrongly-based upon what I then thought was too many older recipes among excellent current ones. I was Wrong. I also then just didn’t know you also did historical recipes.
This post is so well-done and a lot of fun.
Thank you.
Oh the memories, watching y' eaten them. I'm ahh smiling. Thank you, for sharing this process I witnessed as a child. My great grandmother used to make them. And when you stated something about beating for 15 minutes....🤣🤣🤣🤣My short great grandmother told me that's because she was taking all her frustrations with grandpa out on the dough. It saves his life everyday😂
Golly, when Julie crunched into the first one I could imagine that covered with sausage gravy!
I'm thinking this is why biscuits and gravy were invented 🙂
@@dianamcanally5515 Yup, that's what I was thinking too!
These look a lot like what my grandmother made, but I was never up early enough to know if she beat them. I do know she baked them in a round cake or pie pan. She made extra while we were visiting and a plate of biscuits, platter of sausage and country ham, and a jar of her strawberry jam stayed on the table all day. And while I was never a big eater as a kid I took full advantage of the spread!
You just helped explain something that always seemed strange to me. My grandfather, born in 1868 in rural North Carolina, preferred unleavened bread. His mother would have learned cooking from her mother in the pre-leavening days.
Love this! Those of us on low sodium diets have had to avoid biscuits made with commerical leavening agents. Now this! Yay!
The beating with a pin is a way to hydrate the flour without developing a lot of gluten. It would also help prevent the butter from melting from your hands like regular kneading would do. I wonder if 10 minutes in the mixer with a paddle attachment would accomplish the same thing.
I was thinking that one of those fancy Ankarsrum mixers with the dough roller attachment would be perfect for this.
Pin beating also spreads the butter out flat. If you flatten biscuit dough and divide and stack it, rather than gathering it, you get many flaky layers.
A bit like rough puff pastry.
Paddle beating wouldn’t have this kind of flattening/layering effect.
Unless you have a commercial mixer, likely the mixer wouldn't have enough power to push through the dough.
@@AdventuresWithUnkadee Oh, I don't know - my 1962 KitchenAid mixer has been making bread and cakes for sixty years. Yes, every ten years or so I have it serviced and the sacrificial gear failed a few years back - Whirlpool had designed the new ones to fail. Found a commercial source for Hobart, problem solved. I absolutely would not try it with the new piece of trash KitchenAid ProLine my grandkids gave me for my birthday. Such a lovely color, such a piece of plastic trash inside.
Of course, this is one of those discussions which never gets resolved.
These are beaten biscuits. I read that they are beaten/mixed so much that the gluten breaks.
Putting the dough through a food grinder 4x apparently replicates the beating.
What I love about Glen is he's willing to give almost anything a try...then taste it in front of a captured audience whether it is a pass or fail!!! God Bless you, Glen, you are a troop-ah!!!!
So we call them beaten biscuit. My dad made a board with a fluted roller on it that allows you to roll it back and forth until the dough blisters. I never timed it! We follow same prick with fork etc and we always brush with butter and serve with ham inside. Love them!
My mom was born in east Tennessee on the Kentucky border. This was her biscuit. My fathers father (not from Tennessee) said they went straight to his feet.
This made me chuckle.
😄😆🤣🤣🤣🤣
The fact that all of us are here to really enjoy the content, and not just say “FIRST” really says a lot of the viewership, and the content. It’s Sunday, and it’s OCS time!
I always enjoy the video, regardless of what is made. It's an added bit of fun to try and be the first person to watch the video. I always just type first, if I am, and watch the video with a smile on my face, then I flesh out the comment after completing it.
Thanks for watching Everyone!
Let us know in the comments what you're cooking today.
If the rain holds off BBQ
Chicken Tikka masala
German pancake. With pears
Corn pone.
Tater tot hotdish and Peach cobbler
We had these at our wedding reception in southern Virginia with country ham in the 1990s. So good.
I’m going to try this- I can sometimes taste the baking soda/powder flavor, so I may like this even better!
As you were beating out the dough, and commenting on the texture change, I thought of Asian beaten rice dishes like mochi. Seems to have similar concepts.
Like you, I'm am old Punk. Like you, I love historic receipts. Your channel rocks!
Nice! I grew up in Kentucky where beaten biscuits and country ham was served on/during the winter holidays. Thanks for the history lesson. I had no idea about their origins. One thing, the biscuits should be smaller in diameter (no bigger than a Ritz Cracker) and about half as thick. This winter I’m making these for my family. Cheers
I always like the history lessons.
My wife (raised New Jersey) tells a story when she asked her late husband's mother in Tennessee how to make southern biscuits. She was directed to take the "canned biscuits out of the refrigerator"
You are a part of my Sunday morning just like bacon and eggs, which is the only time I have to make them. Love you guys!
Nice idea Chris! My usual egg day is Thursday for some reason. Sunday with Glen and Friends sounds better.
I remember my great aunt in Kentucky making beaten biscuits. We ate them with Kentucky ham and, if I remember correctly, she sold them as a side business.
I'm really digging the fact that Glen seems to be an old-school punk rocker. Delicious recipes and punk rock? Sign me up!
This recipe seems a good one for me, one of my favourite things about cooking is when something just takes a while of beating
Don't know why the TH-cam algorithm sent me here but I'm glad it did.
It starts to explain the biscuit vs. cookie debate with our friends from the UK. Thank you for sharing.
Sunday morning favorite, great as always!
I love this channel. I love that Glenn is a sort of a punk and goes to see Rage Against the Machine. I love the old cook book show, I always learn something new.
😁🤣😂🤣🤣
Thank you Glen for your time and efforts to share all these forgotten recipes.
In old days, before Natron or baking powder, and also today, in Germany, we use Hirschhornsalz, (Baker's Amonia) Ammonium Carbonate to make Spekulatius (Wikipedia has no english translation. In french Spéculoos) or similar products.
The English is “Spekulatius”… (!) I have an ancient German cookbook (in Githic script) that calls for Hirschhornsalz (for one of the Christmas biscuits) and have to substitute baking powder (the real deal being a little difficult to obtain).
Watching this Sunday morning from central Minnesota, Hüsker Dü is greatly appreciated.
Grandma made this biscuit about twice a month with collected bacon fat. We had it with bean soup, butter and jam for lunch.
I'm really glad you showcased this historical transition in preparation. Having only ever eaten leavened biscuits I always wondered why things like Dog Biscuits and Pilot Biscuits carried the name and this resolves it for me.
In the UK, the name ‘biscuits’ stayed as the hard variety. Certainly explains the divergence…
Even the name ‘biscuit’ is from the Latin bis coctum, meaning ‘twice baked’ - like hardtack (what we call ship’s biscuits) or in Italian biscotti, where you bake them twice to drive out the moisture.
Apparently the modern American meaning is only recorded from 1818 - perhaps as the practice of leavening them with buttermilk started to become popular?
For some reason, I thought that was hilarious watching you beating that biscuit dough with the rolling pin. No wonder all the old movies and cartoons had a woman chasing someone or something with a rollin pin. Keep up the great content. Really enjoy watching your shows and implement a lot of recipes you make.
They were also called Beaten Biscuits in the States, for obvious reasons.
So half of my dad's family came up from Kentucky in the early 1900s. He made biscuits like this! So he didn't use a rolling pin to smack it, he used his hand. They're really good for soaking in gravy!
There was a chemical leavening agent from the 1700s called pearl ash but I don't know if it was readily available at the time these cookbooks were written.
Pearlash and Hartshorn, etc were known and used, but not very extensively and not really by home cooks in North America. I can only find one or two instances of it being called for in my collection of home cookbooks.
A old staple restaurant used to have these rolls you could unravel and just spread but as you ripped off a piece. They were sooo good
I can't wait to give this a try! My grandmother used to make a biscuit that she called a ' thick cake'. I've never been able to find a recipe that looked close to what she made. This may be it! She used to split it, butter it, and drizzle it with maple syrup. Thanks so much for your channel!
Just saw the biscuit show. I hope the casserole is for today. Looked good.
I have been watching since the start of the Pandemic and I am hooked on the things you cook. I'm also a fellow Canadian who lives in Ottawa and. Can't wait to see more videos Glen
That’s when I started and Glen is one of my absolute favorites. My guess is that COVID made the careers of many TH-camrs because so many of us started watching when we were stuck at home (except for the essential workers who were stuck exposing themselves to an illness with no viable treatment at the time).
There's an old historic stream powered mill near me and down the street from it was a place called maryland beaten biscuits. It started in the 20s and i think used the mills flour. It closed in 2013. I havnt tried them in years but as a kid I remember them being the toughest chewiest things ever. I've heard family members of the original company have started making them again and selling them at the local farmers market.
I need to know what region of Maryland this is so I can track down those biscuits!
@@TamarLitvot the original factory was in wye mills. The farmers market that they sometimes show up at is in centreville(and I'm sure in other close towns)
@@coryzepp238 thank you!
Husker Du!? Love those guys. You are full of surprises Glen
Thanks for making those, Glen. I grew up in the Smoky Mountains decades ago hearing the old folk talk about "Beaten Biscuits"..... Now I understand.
the tool of choice for beaten biscuits among my Maryland elders was an ax handle. My Missouri grandmother made the best baking powder and lard biscuits by feel, no measurements.
Thank you so much, I’m always wondering how they achieved modern-like results before we had modern ingredients and tools!
First... Now I know what happens to a biscuit if baking soda/powder is omitted. I think I will skip making these. Thank you so much for doing the video. Happy Sunday.
If I remember correctly beaten biscuits in the south are pretty small and are thinner. Great for a ham biscuit
I lived outside of Baltimore in the 1980's and remember people who lived there all their life, explaining beaten biscuits to me. Never saw one in a restaurant though!
My mother and I were talking last night and Mom was telling me how stupid one of her friends is because the friend always calls a recipe a receipt. Mom didn't belive me when I told her the word receipt was antiquated but a perfectly fine word to use for a recipe because it had been in use prior to the word recipe becoming standard. Mom and I then had a good time researching the use of the words receipt and recipe.
I believe that I'd initially looked up the use of the word receipt after having seen it mentioned by you or I saw it in a book page closeup on your channel. Thank you for having posted content that allowed me to have a nice conversation with my mom and for it making it possible for me to convince my mother not to consider her friend to be an idiot based on her use of the word receipt instead of recipe alone.
My mother is 89 years old, set in her ways and quite opinionated. We talk about food quite a bit. At 89 the foods she eats are often the highlight of her day.
In German, the word for "recipe" is "das Rezept" which shows a bit of connection to the rest of the Germanic language family.
Oh, I loved this video. Way back when Cuisinart processors were pretty new and Cuisinart had a Pleasures with Cooking magazine, I remember they had an article about Beaten Biscuits and how it was possible to make them with this new gadget. First of all I found the whole concept of the beaten biscuit new and a bit odd--beating it with a rolling pin? I tried it. The Cuisinart version. That's all I remember. LOL. I guess it wasn't very impressive or I didn't do it well. Anyway, I remember trying it and can't even remember how it tastes. This was a fun video to watch, though, and brought that memory right back.
I'm sure Bob Mould never imagined some of his music would be used in the making of biscuits. 😀
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I moved to Minneapolis in 1980, loved the Husker Du mentions
I remember as a kid getting what other comments here are calling a Maryland beaten biscuit (we lived in Delaware) -- he rolls them out and cuts them into disks in the video, but the beaten biscuits I remember were about the size, shape, consistency, and flavor profile of a golf ball, and I loved 'em. It could take the better part of a day to finish chewing one.
This video reminds me of how certain regional curries only use green peppercorns for their heat.. Much as all spicy curries were made in south and southeast asia before the introduction of the chili. There is still one somewhat famous fish curry in Cambodia that doesnt use anything new world in it's ingredients, no tomatoes either. I always wanted to try it as i've heard it's still quite good.
Biscuits - who doesn't like a biscuit ♥ maybe not the 20 minute beating kind though 😂Looking forward to that surprise baked casserole for next Sunday. Have a good week!
Saleratus was a great discovery for the baker
Can't decide which is more satisfying, the dough bashing or the oven preheating to 450.
Everytime my mother would get mad at my dad, she would rage clean. I inherited this gene. And I think having hubby watch me make these biscuits would be way more effective. If I'm really mad, I could maintain eye contact the whole time.
A very interest Sunday morning show.
I'll confess that I giggled out loud when Jules mentioned hardtack because that's what I muttered to myself when you were pricking the dough--"I bet it's more like hardtack."
This channel is amazing. That’s Glen
Making biscuits prior to 1850 looks like quite a therapeutic exercise.
Very interesting information. Also, I award you bonus points for the fact you said you put on Husker DU to beat the dough with a rolling pin
Great video as always
Thank you
Always look forward to the Sunday cookbook show. Always some fascinating stories, and methods. Keep it up Glenn and Jules.
Good dumplings for soup
I’ll be canning some peach mango salsa and peach whiskey bbq sauce today.
A Husker Du reference in a Glen and Friends video? Man, my life is complete.
I lived in Virginia and was told about "heated biscuits". There was a restaurant in the Chesapeake area who employed elderly ladies to beat the dough with hammers. That was a hoot.
Good show as always thank kindly
At 5.58 I’m thinking that will be one tough biscuit. Can’t wait for the taste test.
I had always heard that the etymology of the American term "biscuit" was that it came from ship's biscuit (i.e. hardtack). And I never understood how something like that could end up giving a name to the light fluffy biscuits that I'm used to. This as an intermediate form makes that make more sense. (I also no longer feel as much of the "I should make beaten biscuits someday" that I got when I first saw the recipe in the Joy of Cooking.
Hey Glen, I'm wondering if this recipe would be better if you used soft winter wheat for your flour, if you didn't use that. The big brand in the South is White Lily, and it gives the biscuits a very different texture; much softer and more moist. White Lily is usually sold as self-rising, but there is an All Purpose version.
The switch to soft flour might give your final product a less tough texture, and might be more historically accurate to the flour that would have been used, although I'm not 100% sure on that
Interesting - but none of the famous Southern flour brands for making biscuits appear until the late 1890s (after these recipes). They come about after improvements in milling the flour to a fine consistency, and improved breeding of softer varieties of wheat.
I'm from Kentucky! We make great biscuits because they go great with CoIoneI Sander's Chicken, PIus a FYI. Southern wheat fIour is softer then northern wheat fIour. That's why they have great biscuits in the south. My mother use to import Northern FIour for her regular European bake goods or breads.
Yrs ago at a civil war reenactment, I remember them talking about using corn cob ash to replace bicarbonate of soda during the war for use in bread. Could this have worked for biscuits too?
Yes - chemical leavening agents were known prior to commercial availability. However when you look through the actual cookbooks; they (Pearlash, Hartshorn, etc) just weren't used by the home cook.
The American Civil War happened after people got a taste of what Baking Soda / Baking Powder could do - so the 'trouble' to make a substitute would be worth it.
Hi Glen.. enjoy your channel... this episode brought to mind a cookie recipe I found years ago from someone with a Scandinavian heritage .. it was passed down from from her grandmother from the old country. It used Hartshorn as a leavening agent that was pre-baking powder and has been used for 300 to 400 years. I checked it out om Wikipedia from which I provide the following quote: "Hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate), also known simply as hartshorn, and baker's ammonia, was used as a leavening agent, in the baking of cookies and other edible treats. It was used mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a forerunner of baking powder.[7] A half-teaspoon of hartshorn can substitute for one teaspoon of baking powder. It is called for in old German and Scandinavian recipes and, although rarely used in modern times, may still be purchased as a baking ingredient."
An interesting historical note for you. As a side issue mentioned on Wiki, if used with some ingredients can produce a carcinogen ... once again a Wiki quote: "Ammonia released during the baking process reacts with glucose and fructose to form intermediate molecules that in turn, react with asparagine (an amino acid found in nuts, seeds, and whole grains) to form acrylamide, a carcinogen." Best wishes from your neighbor to the south...
Those leavening agents were known, but not really seem / used in English (American, Canadian, Scotts, etc) cookbooks.
@@GlenAndFriendsCooking Thank you, Glen.
Glen: Having done such a nice unleavened biscuit today, If you have old cook books from Canadian and American Ashkenazi or Sephardic communities, is there any chance you’d do other kosher recipes in the future? Respectfully, W.S.
Beating the mess out of that biscuit dough that looked so much fun
Fascinating!
I always wondered about that because other than sourdough you know they didnt all have baking powder and baking soda for their cakes breads and etc. Thanks
I found it interesting that the instructions say to prick with a fork. That is commonly used to prevent puffing or layers separating. So they didn't want them to puff up and create layers like in a puff paste? Seems that would put them closer to a risen biscuit?
Being from the American South (kinda), I found this very interesting. Never heard of that kind of biscuit!
My Mamaw, in Tennessee in the Appalachian south (just south of Kentucky!), used to make these every now and then. When you said "that was highly therapeutic" after beating them, I realized she only made them when she was mad at Papaw, and that's probably the exact reason 😂
My mom (from rural and poor Saskatchewan) called biscuits what we now call crackers. If you had rolled them really thin then pricked them with a fork, you would probably have a "cracker".
I had to go look up Husker Du to find out the band. Now I have a picture of Glen just wah-laying on the biscuit dough as the music was getting going.
I still make "Maryland beaten biscuits" the way my Granny showed me years ago, now and then, when I'm good and angry. LOL :)
I'm still getting used to my new glasses, so at the beginning I glanced at the page in the recipe book as saw "English Patient". I thought, easy recipe to make just throw whatever into a bowl then leave it in the oven for 6 to 8 hours. Too dark? Sorry, I've been on stress leave for a week. This episode gives a hunger for biscuits and gravy, though. The best biscuits and gravy can only be found in a truck stop in the South. Bucket list item. My first time was in New Mexico. Unforgettable.