Ham and Cheese Pull Apart Biscuits Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you make biscuits that don't fall apart? ›

Falling apart

The likelihood here is that your recipe needs a bit more liquid, or your recipe has too high a ratio of flour. Be sparing with any flour you put on the work surface to roll your dough too. Too much will dry it out and cause the cookie to crumble (so to speak).

The butter version rises the highest — look at those flaky layers! The shortening biscuit is slightly shorter and a bit drier, too. Butter contains a bit of water, which helps create steam and gives baked goods a boost.

Do not Overwork Biscuit Dough. Handle the dough as little as possible. Every time you touch, knead and fold, you are developing gluten. The more developed the gluten, the tougher the biscuit.

If your biscuits come out hard and crumbly, it's most likely because the dough was overworked during the kneading process. To prevent that, mix your dough just until it comes together. You should still see bits of butter in your dough.

But if you chill your pan of biscuits in the fridge before baking, not only will the gluten relax (yielding more tender biscuits), the butter will harden up. And the longer it takes the butter to melt as the biscuits bake, the more chance they have to rise high and maintain their shape. So, chill... and chill.

To help cookies keep their shape, freeze them! I freeze each batch of cut-out cookies for 5 to 10 minutes before baking. They rise just slightly higher and keep their shape better. This really helps when using an intricate cookie cutter, but I do this even when baking circles.

Buttermilk can produce better results when baking biscuits than using regular milk or cream. Buttermilk is acidic and when it is combined with baking soda, it creates a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas, which causes the dough to rise and gives the biscuits a light and flaky texture.

Buttermilk adds a nice tang to the biscuit flavor and helps them rise better.

White wheat in general is around 9-12% protein, while the hard reds are 11-15%. As far as brands of flour, White Lily “all-purpose” flour has been my go-to for biscuit making. It's a soft red winter wheat, and the low protein and low gluten content keep biscuits from becoming too dense.

White Lily brand flour, especially the self-rising flour, is the gold standard among Southern cooks who make biscuits on a regular basis.

What is the king of biscuit? ›

Pillai became known in India as the 'Biscuit King' or 'Biscuit Baron'. He took over Nabisco's other Asian subsidiaries. Pillai then established links with Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel (BSN), the French food company, and by 1989 controlled six Asian companies worth over US$400 million.

Cake flour will give you a lighter, fluffier biscuit, but the outer crust won't have as much bite to it. Conversely, all-purpose flour will provide more bite, but it'll be a drier, less airy biscuit. The solution: Use half cake flour and half all-purpose flour.

Bake them close to each other.

Biscuits are an exception to this rule: Placing them close to one another on your baking sheet actually helps them push each other up, as they impede each other from spreading outward and instead puff up skywards.

While over-handling your biscuit dough can make your baked goods turn out like hockey pucks, under-mixing it while you're still adding all of your ingredients can result in floury or grainy biscuits.

A hot oven helps biscuits bake—and rise—quickly. We recommend 475˚F for 15 minutes.

I've experienced a more crumbly product which comes from a dough that is too dry, by just a little bit more buttermilk. Also, be sure to adequately blend your butter/shortening with your flour. Don't use bread flour or cake flour- all purpose is just fine.

The solution is as simple as putting the biscuits in an airtight jar along with a small piece of bread (no more than half a slice). If you don't have an airtight jar, a zip-lock bag also works well.

Biscuits crumble after baking because the rim of the biscuit expands and the centre contracts, according to researchers from Loughborough University and Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association, UK.

Move the cooled biscuits to an airtight container.

Plastic containers or tins will also work, but you have less control over the amount of air sealed in with the biscuits. Biscuits stored this way may dry out faster than usual. Another option is to wrap the biscuits up tightly in a few layers of foil or plastic wrap.