Blueberry Biscuits | Baking with Dorie

The playing around option for the blueberry biscuit Dorie suggests is the berry-biscuit shortcake. The way to go is by piling fresh berries as well as lightly whipped cream on top when the biscuits are ready to be served. Nevertheless, the basic biscuit recipe remains unchanged. That leads into my long-running obsession with the blueberry biscuit dough.

I call the blueberry biscuits the Chicago biscuits. 3-1-2 is the three-digit-code for Chicago, easy to remember, especially for the locals. It may be an old-fashion habit in remembering the area code after dialing those numbers, repeatedly. For the biscuits, 3-1-2 is the code of another kind. It’s a ratio, meaning 3 parts flour to 1 part fat and 2 parts liquid. 3-1-2 represents the relative weight of the key ingredients in the recipe. In other words, you use twice as much liquid to butter, and three times the amount of flour. I’ve committed this ratio to memory which makes blueberry biscuits baking feel like poetry.

Check out Dorie’s recipe for comparison. There are 2 cups of flour (272 grams), including baking powder, salt and baking soda for the dry ingredients. In addition, three tablespoons of sugar get into the mix. Toss in the cold butter pieces (85 grams). Mash them into the flour mixture, squeeze until they become as small as flakes or peas. Then pour in the yogurt-milk (120 ml plain yogurt and 60 ml cold milk) to bring the dough together. (Let’s see: 272-85-180 roughly adheres to a 3-1-2 ratio.) Finally, stir in the fresh blueberries.

The dough can be made, cut and frozen for up to 2 months. To bake, place the shaped biscuits in a preheated 425°F oven for about 15 minutes.

The way I play around the recipe is by substituting whole-wheat for all-purpose flour and use frozen blueberries. Together with other pantry items of yogurt and milk, the tender and juicy blueberry biscuits are only a few steps and less-than-an-hour away. These biscuits do not taste like desserts because they are not very sweet. On top of that, the wholesome quality of the biscuits makes them good to eat anytime of the day, breakfast included.