My grandmother's biscuit recipe took 45 minutes of kneading but now I cheat with a food processor

I used to spend every Sunday morning punching dough for what felt like forever until my aunt caught me and told me to just pulse it 8 times and stop, which honestly felt wrong but the biscuits came out even fluffier. Now I'm too lazy to ever go back to hand kneading and my grandma would probably roll over in her grave if she knew. Has anyone else quietly modernized a family recipe without telling the elders?

3 comments

3 Comments

rileyb6124d ago

My friend's grandma makes her famous pie crust with a fork and says anyone who uses a pastry cutter is a coward. I read this article last week about how gluten develops differently with a food processor because it's faster and more even, so you actually get a better texture with less work. That's probably why your biscuits come out fluffier. I switched my cornbread recipe to using melted butter instead of cold cubed butter and my mom side-eyed me so hard at Thanksgiving but nobody could tell the difference. My aunt still makes her gravy from scratch with a wooden spoon and I just use an immersion blender when she's not looking.

shanem3724d ago

The immersion blender thing is genius honestly. I've been doing that with my soups for years and nobody's called me out yet.

vera_palmer19d ago

The immersion blender thing is genius honestly. I once tried to make my grandma's meatball recipe in a stand mixer instead of mixing by hand and felt like a criminal. My cousin walked in and asked why I was letting the KitchenAid do my job. I told her I was testing a theory about texture and she just laughed. So your grandma would probably forgive you if she tasted those fluffy biscuits, right?