Today is

By: Ikedi Ani-okoye.

Cheese biscuits

100g/4oz finely grated cheese
50g/2oz self-raising flour
25g/1oz soft butter
pinch of cayenne pepper

For the cheese you can use a mature cheddar or 80g mild cheddar with 20g parmesan cheese. Put everything into a bowl and rub in, squidge and knead for about 5 minutes until it comes together into a soft dough. It will do, just as you are about to give up hope of it doing so unaided.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 2.5mm/ 1/8" thick and cut into whatever fancy shapes you have cutters for. Bake at 200C/400F for 10-12 minutes until golden. Cool on a rack. This amount disappears very quickly, even before you've turned your back on them sometimes, they're very light and moreish, so I usually make double or triple quantities for the festivals.The cheese biscuits go down very well with adults too.

Super light biscuits

To make super light biscuits, you'll alter your normal biscuit recipt just a tiny bit. Prepare the oatmeal as usual -- but, since the prepared oatmeal is fairly liquid, it'll make your biscuit dough into a batter ... IF you add the normal amount of milk! So ... cut down on your milk portion. Add a little milk to the oatmeal, then add your dry ingredients, then slowly mix, adding more milk a little bit at a time as necessary.

One other change -- since you'll be using less milk, the baking powder in your mix won't have as much acid to react to. This means your biscuits won't rise like they normally do unless you give them a little bit of help. I like to toss a squeeze of lemon juice into the mix. You won't taste the lemon, but it'll supercharge your baking powder.

Again, your dough will be a little frothy. You'll use less milk and the dough will not be as dense as usual. If you're rolling the dough and using a biscuit cutter, roll your dough a little thicker than normal before cutting.That's all -- bake as normal and your result will be biscuits light enough to float off the pan!

CONCLUSION

I grew up eating wonderful biscuits at home, but most Americans never had a taste of biscuits until 1973 when McDonald’s introduced them with their breakfast menu. My wife and I make wonderful biscuits as does my oldest son. Mine are absolutely perfect. My wife prefers her version because they are smaller.

She uses a small juice glass to cut out her biscuits, while I like the larger size of a 16 oz. tumbler. Peg’s biscuits also don’t stand as high as mine. Plus she tends to overcook her biscuits . . . in my opinion. Of course, my wife disagrees with me. All these homemade biscuit differences are only slight compared to commercial products. -------Dom Doman---------