BAKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH

Anne Byrn’s big, beautiful new book

Anne’s book in my kitchen. Photo: Jolene

I’ve already gotten White Lily Flour and a splash of heavy cream all over page 67 of my friend Anne Byrn’s gorgeous new book, BAKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, and that’s ok.

Memories and a bit of enthusiastic baking spillage linger on the pages of all of my favorite cookbooks, and Anne’s book instantly became one of them.

The two ingredients needed for Cream Biscuits. Photo: Jolene

The subtitle of her book is 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories, and the esteemed Southern baker and writer is here to tell you all of them.

Anne researched this project for years and introduces us to the cooks and bakers whose essential contributions are the foundation of Southern baking. She ensures they are recognized, credited and remembered.

It’s an important book, one that covers the history of baking in fourteen states in the American South. Anne writes of the Pre-Civil War era “where enslaved Black cooks brought their knowledge of frying, preparing grains, stewing greens, and integrating heat and spice” and who “made the biscuits, cornbread, pies and cakes we still bake today.”

A map of the Southern States from the pages of Baking in the American South

The almost 500-pages in this book hold recipes from department stores and boarding houses, tearooms and school cafeterias, churches and synagogues, farms, mills and more.

There are also entries from famous Southern chefs including Edna Lewis and Nathalie Dupree, along with favorite family recipes from Anne that celebrate the baking of her aunt, grandmother and mother.

The dedication page in BAKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH is touching in sentiment and powerful in its simplicity, and the message is echoed and reflected in every story and recipe.

For the bakers of the South,

past and present,

near and far,

seen and unseen.

Anne Byrn

Congratulations,

Anne Byrn

, and thank you for this wonderful book. I’m looking forward to spilling many more ingredients on it as I learn and bake my way through its beautiful pages.✨

If you’d like to purchase BAKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, the link is: HERE.

To learn more about Anne and subscribe to her terrific newsletter, click on this link:

Anne Byrn: Between the Layers

.

Making Biscuits

Cream Biscuits in my kitchen. Photo: Jolene

My mother-in-law, Sarah Handy, was a really wonderful, elegant (and funny!) woman who grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. She was a real pal to me and was an amazing cook and baker.

The first Christmas I spent in her gracious home in Vermont, everyone was bustling around the kitchen, helping prepare the meal, and Sarah asked me if I’d make the biscuits.

Now, my own mother was another wonderful, elegant and funny woman and also a terrific cook, but she never liked baking.

The request from my Southern mother-in-law to make biscuits for the holiday table came a decade before I went to cooking school, and at that point my experience making biscuits was to smack a cylinder of Poppin’ Fresh dough against the kitchen counter and call it a day.

My sister-in-law bailed me out and made the biscuits and I made the salad that Christmas.

As I’ve written before, I often think of this quote from the great food writer, Laurie Colwin, when I’m baking in my kitchen and the memories visit:

No one who cooks, cooks alone.

I made Cream Biscuits from Anne’s book the other morning, from a recipe by the Southern baking legend, Nathalie Dupree, and knew Sarah would have gotten a kick out of how far my biscuit-making had come.

Cream Biscuits. Photo: Jolene

This recipe is from BAKING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH and is shared here with Anne Byrn’s permission. The biscuits are, as Anne writes, ethereal.

NATHALIE DUPREE’S CREAM BISCUITS

Makes 14 (2-inch) biscuits. Prep: 15-20 minutes.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing the pan and finishing the biscuits, divided

2 1/4 cups (270 grams) self-rising flour, plus a little more for handling the dough (see Note)

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

* NOTE: Dupree suggests a soft flour such as White Lily for this.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a rack in the middle. Brush a 9-inch round cake pan with about 1 tablespoon of the melted butter and set aside.

2. Place the flour in a large bowl and pour in 1 cup of the cream. Stir with a fork until the ingredients come together, and add the remaining 1/4 cup cream as needed so the dough comes together into a ball.

3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With floured hands, pat the dough into a rough rectangle and fold in half. Pat it out again into a rectangle and fold in half again.

I used a small pastry marble to pat the dough out on. Photo: Jolene

3. (continued) Pat it to 3/4-inch thickness and cut out 14 (2-inch) rounds. If necessary, patch together the scraps, and cut out the last biscuits. Place them side by side in the prepared pan.

My biscuit cutter was slightly larger (2 1/4) so my yield was a baker’s dozen. Photo: Jolene

4. Bake until golden brown, 14 to 18 minutes. Brush with the remaining 1 tablespoon melted butter while hot. Serve hot.

I enjoyed quite the cutting board lunch the other day: cream biscuits with ham and fig preserves, and cream biscuits with ham and Ringhand’s Wisconsin mustard. And a Coke. ✨

Have a great Sunday, everyone, and congratulations again, Anne!

Jolene

PS — Plans are in the works for the October Snacky-Drinky Salon (on Zoom) for paid subscribers, so consider upgrading your subscription today. $35/year or $5/month, thanks so much!