by Kathy Patalsky · updated: · published: · About 4 minutes to read this article. 2 Comments
In my new Vegan buttermilk Biscuits recipe, spoiler alert, I used Bob's Red Mill unbleached pastry flour. But I absolutely tested that recipe a few different ways and with specifically, two different flours. Including the famous White Lily brand. The results: they both created delicious biscuits with a few subtle differences. I'm excited to share my views with you today...
Best Biscuit Flour Consensus
Do a little research online about how to make the best, authentically-southern biscuits and a 'flour brand war' will start raging.
"You can't use just any flour," is what most experts agree. And I generally agree on this as well.
But some biscuit experts agree that specific brands yield the best biscuits. One very popular/infamous biscuit flour brand is White Lily...
White Lily Brand Gets Rave Reviews
SouthernKitchen.com says, "Ask any Southern chef or sagacious biscuit grandma and you’ll hear a pattern emerge: they all swear byWhite Lily flour."
However, one contrasting viewpoint comes in this article on NPR.org, that says maybe the flour isn't as important as everyone has always said. A common all-purpose flour could maybe, maybe work just as well. Chef Carla Hall said they did a little test in their kitchen, "..(made biscuits) with each type of flour and, surprisingly, the hard wheat flour won for both."
Do you Need Special Flour for Biscuits?
So maybe this whole "special flour for biscuits" thing is just a myth? Nah. I think any baker knows that flour does matter when baking. Using the 'right' flour for cakes, muffins, breads and biscuits definitely has impact on the finished product. But the real mystery comes in answering, what does it mean to be the "best biscuit."
What Makes a Biscuit, the "best?"
I have to agree with the southern grandmas on this one. I do think that special, lower-gluten flour makes the best biscuits. And by "best" I mean super fluffy and light and melt-in-your-mouth buttery.
All Purpose Flour?
I used to make biscuits using only all-purpose flour and they definitely had a chewier texture and less fluffiness. Still delicious, but I do prefer a finer, lighter flour for biscuits.
But again, everyone has different tastes, and today I'm just sharing mine.
White Lily vs. Bob's Red Mill Pastry Flour
Once I found a recipe I liked, I tested my biscuits using both brands. One note, the White Lily version I used was the unbleached self-rising flour. Which meant that it did have the salt and baking soda/powder built in. My Bob's was not self-rising, so I added those ingredients myself.
I quite liked adding my own ingredients because I was able to choose the quality and brands. I used my fave pink salt and an aluminum-free baking powder.
Bob's says about their flour, "Our Fine Pastry Flour is milled from soft white wheat with a low protein content, making it ideal for tender baked goods."
White Lily says, "Made From 100% Soft Winter Wheat and is a Southern tradition since 1883."
The Results
The results were pretty clear. The White Lily flour absolutely baked up a spongy, fluffy, flaky, very tender biscuit. While the Bob's flour baked up an equally fluffy biscuit, with just a bit more nuttiness and oomph in the dough. Less cake-like in my opinion.
Split Results! I preferred the Bob's Red Mill, non-rising flour route, while my husband preferred the ultra-soft and light White Lily biscuits.
The Bottom Line
I personally think that biscuits are at their best when you use a fine pastry-type flour like White Lily or Bob's Pastry flour. BUT, all-purpose flour is absolutely an option.
I actually think that your technique when making biscuits is just as - if not, more - important than the flour you use. And I talk techniques and tips in this post: Vegan Buttermilk Biscuits.
disclosure: this post contains Amazon affiliate links
More reviews
I Choose My Peloton Bike Every Day I Can
365 Brand Vegan Barbecue Sauce Review
True Botanicals Review - Clean Skincare
My Ruggable Review
About Kathy Patalsky
Hey there! I'm Kathy, lover of kitty cats, weekend baking, 90's movies, travel, beach fog and foamy lattes. Since 2007, I have been sharing my vegan recipes and photos. My goal is to make your cooking life a little easier, delicious - and plant-loaded - while sharing some LIFE and conversation along the way.
The Results. The results were pretty clear. The White Lily flour absolutely baked up a spongy, fluffy, flaky, very tender biscuit. While the Bob's flour baked up an equally fluffy biscuit, with just a bit more nuttiness and oomph in the dough.
If you start asking around, any Southern chef, Southern Living Test Kitchen pro, or biscuit-making family member will swear by White Lily flour. Generations of bakers have claimed it as the secret to the perfect, flaky biscuit.
Cake flour or another low-protein flour like Martha White are the closest substitutes. Carolyn Durst, 62, a sweepstakes winner in the pie competition at the Kentucky State Fair, said, “I give pie crust demonstrations to my friends, and I tell them, No. 1, you've got to have White Lily flour.”
Cake flour will give you a lighter, fluffier biscuit, but the outer crust won't have as much bite to it. Conversely, all-purpose flour will provide more bite, but it'll be a drier, less airy biscuit. The solution: Use half cake flour and half all-purpose flour.
True to its name, all-purpose flour was developed to be a one-size-fits-all flour to be used in a number of ways. “All-purpose flour was designed for home cooks to be able to use one flour in order to make a loaf of bread, or a cake or cookies,” Chef Stephen says.
Southern buttermilk biscuit recipes typically call for White Lily flour, a low-protein brand primarily available in the southern states that makes for ultra-tender, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits.
In the fall of 2006 The J.M. Smucker Company agreed to buy the brand. Two years earlier, Smucker had acquired the Martha White brand of baking mixes. Under the terms of the agreement, Pioneer agreed to continue making the White Lily products at the Knoxville plant and a facility in Prosperity, South Carolina.
White Lily was created by J. Allen Smith in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1883, and named after his wife, Lillie. Since Sunday dinner was a special occasion, bakers sometimes reserved its use specifically for that purpose, so it became known to some as the Sunday flour.
Cold butter is key to making your biscuits fluffy. Warm butter will be absorbed into the flour and prevent them becoming all fluffy. Its similar to making pie crust. Cold butter will not be fully absorbed by the flour which means you will have small chunks visible in the dough.
Because of its comparatively low protein content, pastry flour is ideal for making pie crusts, biscuits, cookies, French pastries, and other flaky baked goods. Protein helps to give your finished product structure, so flaky or airy recipes tend to call for lower-protein flour.
Why You'll Love White Lily® Flour. Simply put, our flour isn't like the others. Milled from 100% soft red winter wheat, White Lily® Flour is finer in texture with a lower protein content, which makes for fluffier biscuits, the softest cookies, and the most tender cakes.
The White Lily flour actually feels softer between the fingers. This has everything to do with the fact that, at 9% protein, White Lily's all-purpose flour is milled from soft red winter wheat, while King Arthur Baking's all-purpose flour is milled from hard red wheat (and comes in at 11.7% protein).
What you get—instead of those chemical bleaching agents—is flour from superior grains grown by farmers we trust. Our flour is carefully milled according to the strictest specifications that we've developed over generations to give you the best, most consistent results at home.
Ultimately, the flour you choose to bake with is entirely up to you. Bleached and unbleached flours can both be used interchangeably in any recipe without a major discernable difference.
Strong flour isn't good for cakes and biscuits because the high gluten level makes them tough. But for bread, where you want to trap the gas bubbles that give the loaf its structure and springiness, strong flour is ideal – hence why it's often called bread flour.
The fans of White Lily, a silky low-protein, low-gluten flour made with soft red winter wheat, are legion, declaring that it is nigh impossible to bake a good biscuit without it.
Introduction: My name is Greg Kuvalis, I am a witty, spotless, beautiful, charming, delightful, thankful, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
