These are the lightest, fluffiest biscuits you’ll ever taste. Lorena always used White Lily flour – that’s part of the secret. Lorena sifted the flour. The White Lily website says you don’t have to sift, but who is going to argue with perfection? If you make them about a million times, you might get as good at making them as Lorena.
Pictured here are the Hitch girls. From left to right:
Rebecca (Aunt Callie), Mary Frances, Edna (Grandmother), and Lorena.
This picture was taken in the late 1940’s.
2 cups White Lily self-rising flour
½ cup shortening
½ cup milk
Measure the flour by spooning it into a measuring cup and leveling it off.
Vegetable shortening should be packed into the measuring cup so there are no air pockets. (Lorena measures with a coffee cup and many years of experience.)
First make a well in the center of the flour and mix in the shortening with a fork until blended.
Gradually stir in milk, adding only enough to moisten the flour and hold the dough together.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently – don’t overwork the dough – your biscuits will be flakier.
Roll the dough to ½ inch thickness and cut rounds out with a sharp-edged biscuit cutter. (Lorena used the same biscuit cutter Mom Hitch used.) Cut straight down without twisting to ensure tall, straight biscuits. Gather the remaining dough, re-roll, and re-cut.*
Place biscuits in an uncreased pan with sides touching and bake at 450º F. for 8 to 10 minutes or, as Lorena says, “Til they’re done.”
(Drop biscuits can be made by increasing the amount of milk (½ cup to ¾ cup.) Then drop dough, using a heaping tablespoon, onto a baking sheet. Bake as directed above.)
Note: The last biscuit Lorena made we called “the cathead biscuit.” Shaped by hand and “bigger than a cat’s head,” it is usually fought over and one lucky kid gets it.
Breads, 2001