makes 8 biscuits
Thank you, Jane Gibson, originally from Arkansas by way of Seattle. When I met Jane, she had already made her way from a short order cook in Arkansas to a truly elite pastry chef in Seattle. At her home, she was a damn fine Southern cook. Flash-forward a few years to my time Las Vegas, during which I was tasked with coming up with a good biscuit for the M Resort, so I called up Jane. She was tickled that out of all the things I could have asked—and she’s a font of knowledge when it comes to French pastry—the one thing I wanted was a biscuit. She took great pains to describe how to make the dough and how it should feel, but somehow the right words eluded her. She said it was important to develop the gluten, but not too much—which didn’t throw a whole lot of light on the subject. Finally, she tossed in the towel on trying to explain it with delicacy and said, “I don’t know a better way to describe than to tell you the dough is right when it feels like a nice ass.” Not your usual baking descriptor . . . but very apt.