Cold Butter
There are a couple of key points to remember in making biscuits, scones, and pie crusts. Ingredients should be kept cold until use. Keeping them cold will ensure that the butter will have no opportunity to melt until it reaches the oven. Melting butter releases moisture, which supports the development of gluten (too much of which will make the crust tough); and once the butter is melted, there will be no separation between it and the flour within the dough. This separation is what creates flake and tenderness and supports a puffy, crisp pastry.
After adding the liquid to your dough be careful not to overwork it with too much kneading or mixing. Mechanical action will develop gluten and toughen pastries. Just mix until the ingredients are combined and then stop. Additional incorporation of a dry bit here or there will be handled when the dough is rolled or shaped.
There are things that are no longer homemade, and the list seems to keep growing. At Oma’s house a sandwich prepared with store-bought bread would be served only with a side of apology. These days, spotting a committed home baker is not unlike that spring afternoon when cedar waxwings migrate through our yard—it’s worth a trip to the window. You and I can change that with a few ingredients and a little time, but before we get to that, let’s bring back another staple that will reward our attention and our mouths.
I don’t know where store-bought butter comes from, I picture a windowless lab with white walls and an expensive instrument, the lauded “flavor extractor,” which purifies, beats, and stabilizes the formerly flavorFUL cream and renders it entirely tasteless but shelf stable (whee, who cares!). If you follow labels you will even notice that butter is often made with the addition of natural flavoring . . . because butter needs more flavor? Let’s stop this insanity; butter is damn easy and quick to make. What do you need? Cream. The stuff from the store in the wax carton will work, but if you can find your way to a local farm that sells directly, or find a source at a local food cooperative (look for the glass bottles), the experience will be even richer.