Callie's Southern Biscuits Review | The Nibble Webzine Of Food Adventures

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK: Callie’s Southern Biscuits

March 12, 2008 at 7:29 am · Filed under Bread-Crackers-Sandwiches, Breakfast & Brunch, Giftable, Top Pick Of The Week

Can’t you taste the goodness of Callie’s Country Ham Biscuits? The Cheese and Cinnamon are also stunning (photo courtesy Callie’s).

She catered Reese Witherspoon’s and Ryan Philippe’s wedding, and other catering clients have been clamoring for her country ham-stuffed biscuits for years.

She couldn’t hand over the secret recipe, of course, so Charleston, South Carolina caterer Callie White did the next best thing: She charged her daughter with opening up a division to sell the bodacious biscuits online.

Now, there’s no need for you to imagine what super Southern biscuits taste like. Buttermilk, cheese, cinnamon and the country ham biscuits that started it all will come to you.

Get yourself a variety pack for Easter dinner or breakfast. Send some to Mom for Mother’s Day. Each biscuit is handmade with just a bowl and no other equipment (save for the oven, of course).

Callie says that the secret to making a great biscuit is to not over-mix the dough. Each batch is mixed by hand, and the expert biscuit makers know by the feel when the dough is ready. It’s art, it’s science, it’s delicious!

Read the full review, and order at CalliesBiscuits.com.

Visit more of our favorite breads and biscuits in the Gourmet Bread Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine.

WHY IS A BISCUIT A COOKIE IN ENGLAND?

Why do the British refer to cookies and crackers as biscuits?

In the U.S., a biscuit is a small, typically round cake of bread, leavened with baking powder, baking soda or sometimes, yeast. It is typically savory.

British biscuits are either sweet (U.S. cookie) or savory (U.S. cracker). Both are flat and crisp.

What Americans call a biscuit is called a scone in the U.K.

Why the difference?

It’s because the word biscuit comes from the Latin bis coctum, which means “twice cooked.” This is manifested in biscotti, the hard Italian cookies which are baked twice. So hard and flat indicates a biscuit.

Americans get “cookie” from the Dutch word, koekje, which means little cake (and cake is soft). Both terms arrived in America in the 1600s, with their respective groups of Colonists.

Do The British Use The Word “Cookie?”

Yes, but for a different style: not flat and crisp.

The soft, chewy cookies that developed in the U.S. are, in fact, called cookies in the U.K. But they aren’t as common in the U.K. as the crispy biscuits.

When American Biscuits Came To Indicate Bread

According to The Encyclopedia of American American Food and Drink, the first American usage of “biscuit” as a soft bread was in 1818, in the Journal of Travels in the United States of North America, and in Lower Canada, by John Palmer.

By 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defined a biscuit as “a composition of flour and butter, made and baked in private families.” These small, puffy leavened breads were called soda biscuits or baking-soda biscuits, to differentiate them from the unleavened cracker type of biscuit. Recipes are ubiquitous in 19th-century cookbooks.

In addition to serving up plenty of soda biscuits, Southerners also developed the beaten biscuit, first mentioned in print in 1853. In 1930, General Mills introduced Bisquick, the first packaged biscuit mix. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Pass the butter, please.

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