Biscuit Bliss

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JAN 1, 2004

Villas (Crazy for Casseroles) crafts the ultimate guide to biscuits in this slim but comprehensive volume. The former food and wine editor for Town & Country (he's also a James Beard award winner) admits to a lifelong fascination with biscuits, and here he gives home cooks plenty of reasons to heed his plea to abandon those pre-packaged ones from the dairy case at the supermarket. "No bread," he insists,"is simpler, quicker and more downright fun to make." Briefly but thoroughly covering the basic ingredients of flour, leavenings and fat, as well as tools and tips, Villas begins with plain raised biscuits such as Clabber Biscuits, Cathead Biscuits and the unfortunately named Three-Fat Baking Powder Biscuits ("the lard yields a delightfully brittle texture, the shortening a delicate fluffiness, and the butter a rich flavor"). Villas's flavored biscuits are a cornucopia of tastes: Tomato-Parmesan Biscuits, Maine Clam Biscuits and Georgia Pecan-Molasses Biscuits. Drop biscuits are flavored by sour cream and dill, spiced honey and coconut, and vanilla, while the chapters on Cocktail and Tea Biscuits and Scones yield countless other delights. The recipes are easy to follow, and Villas's introductions to each are enjoyable reading (he reveals a definite prejudice towards Southern cooks and cookery). Though after a few recipes the biscuits may blend together for all but the most dedicated of biscuit-lovers, and the heavy doses of butter and lard may scare off calorie-counters, this is a thorough and engaging cookbook. Photos.