The recipe for Touch of Grace biscuits comes from the hands of a grandmother from all the way down in Atlanta, Ga., who used to bake them three meals a day. The men came home for lunch back then. They worked hard, too, so there were always two kinds of meat, several kinds of vegetables and cornbread waiting for them in addition to buttermilk biscuits.
"She was really busy," says "Nannie's" granddaughter, Shirley Corriher, who can be thanked for putting this recipe in her 1997 cookbook, "Cookwise."
Corriher -- a cook, writer and often-quoted food chemist -- has paved her way into the hearts of many with these biscuits. Once she made them for an international crowd at a food conference in Sicily and got a standing ovation. That rendition of the biscuits had cream in the batter. She has made them for Corby Kummer in Boston, too.
Kummer is the renowned food writer at The Atlantic Monthly and is known for his purist sensibilities: Apparently, using self-rising flour, as specified by Corriher's recipe, is considered taking a shortcut because the leaveners are already mixed in. As such, Touch of Grace biscuits aren't "from scratch."
On his next visit to Atlanta, Kummer intended to prove to Corriher that he could make better biscuits. So, Corriher set up an experiment for him. She provided the necessary ingredients for him to make one batch using a standard combination of regular flour and baking powder, one batch using White Lily Southern self-rising flour (Corriher's preferred brand), and one batch using whatever combination of leaveners and flour he cared to concoct.
"The White Lily was just so much better," recalls Corriher in her trademark lilt. "It just destroyed him. I guess he was too . . . scratchy."
Corriher also has made the biscuits for countless students in countless cooking classes across the country, including me at the Cooking School of Aspen about five or six years ago. She baked biscuits that afternoon -- at high altitude, to boot, which can be difficult -- and stirred up some pralines ("prawleens"). There was enough for everyone to have only one biscuit and that one biscuit made me a true believer. I didn't get what the fuss about biscuits was until I tasted grace.
The flavor of Touch of Grace biscuits is creamy and sweet, with that just-right hint of acidity from the buttermilk. I eat it and wonder why all biscuits aren't this tender, this fluffy, this satisfying. They make you want to get up at 6 in the morning to bake them and, indeed, every batch I've ever made has come out of the oven before the sun. Buttered right away and dressed with homemade jam, perhaps raspberry or blueberry, the biscuits will make you think you have gone on to a better place.
There are several elements that make this biscuit especially good. First, it requires the use of White Lily self-rising flour, which is a triple-milled flour made only of soft winter wheat. Because winter wheat contains lower amounts of protein and gluten, the baked goods made with the flour are light and tender. Many other brands of flour combine soft and hard wheat, which creates a product that contains higher amounts of protein and gluten.
White Lily is based in Knoxville, Tenn. The brand is widely distributed in the South and has been around since 1883.
Here in Seattle, White Lily self-rising flour is available at Williams-Sonoma in 2-pound bags for $2. If you shop online at www.whitelily.com, you can buy 5-pound bags for $2 plus shipping. Also, you can find some of White Lily's other products, such as all-purpose flour, brownie mix and cornmeal mix.
The second necessary ingredient in the recipe is cream. There is not enough fat in the buttermilks of today to give the biscuits proper flavor.
"(Nannie) had a Jersey cow and she didn't give low-fat milk," Corriher says. "This is why I add the cream."
I tried the biscuits with and without (heavy) cream. The ones with cream were noticeably more flavorful.
Finally, this dough is so wet -- it's supposed to look like cottage cheese -- that the steam created in the oven helps make the biscuits extra light.
"It took me 20 years to figure out the recipe," Corriher says. "I used to follow Nannie around in the kitchen. I would use her bowl and her shortening and her flour. I did everything she did and my biscuits would turn out mealy. I'd ask her what I was doing wrong and she'd lean down and give me a big hug and say, 'I guess you forgot to add a touch of grace.' "
Corriher has updated the recipe for Touch of Grace Biscuits. So, if you have an older edition of "Cookwise," replace that recipe with the following. What's different is that she increased the amount of flour, sugar and shortening, and took out the baking soda.
2 cups self-rising flour, preferably low-protein White Lily
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons shortening
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup buttermilk, plus more if needed
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons bacon or sausage drippings, if needed
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
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