A while back my aunt gave me some lard and it has sat in the fridge until recently. We have started using some of it to make biscuits. I know, lard biscuits sound awesome.
First of all, don’t get all caught up about eating lard. It is better for you than that trans fat stuff and it is okay in moderation.
I love Alton Brown’s podcast (I wish he would make more) and he always talks about making biscuits so I decided to use his recipe. I just used lard instead of shortening.
Click here for Alton Brown’s Biscuit Recipe
One thing to note is that kneading dough helps develop the gluten which makes bread hold together. Gluten is created out of existing proteins in flour when water is added, For things like biscuits you do not want a lot of gluten and that is why you are not supposed to work it much.
Here is a neat video on gluten.
There are also some flours with lower amounts of protein which can be used for this. We had some cake flour (a flour with lower protein) so I made my biscuits out of it.
For my next sets of biscuits I need to add a bit more salt and work on rolling out my dough better.
If you want to give it a shot, here s a video of someone making Alton’s recipe.